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Trying to figure out how to buy an Nvidia RTX 3080 is a bit of a nightmare right now. The demand for all of the green team's next-gen Ampere GPUs has been so high that it has far out-stripped supply. And so, months after launch, it's still all but impossible to buy a standalone card in either RTX 3070, RTX 3080, or RTX 3090 trim. Nvidia has even apologized after certain automated systems bought up all available cards. It was the bots. Damn them bots. We knew the robots would be coming for us eventually, and this is surely the beginning.

It's not a problem exclusive to Nvidia either, with AMD's RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 GPU launches delivering an arguably worse experience for the serious graphics card hunter. These barely even seemed to appear before they were gone again—no doubt exacerbated by all the miffed Nvidia fans, trying to move to the red team. And we have yet to spot any of the third-party cards for AMD's new GPUs, either.

GPUs aren't the only component affected. AMD's new Ryzen 5000 CPUs are still conspicuous by their absence from retail, it's practically impossible to bag a new PSU, and the best SSDs and RAM are the only components we can rely on to actually be in stock anywhere. Oh, and GTX 1050 Tis. You seem to be able to pay over the odds for those if you really want. Please don't.

So yes, this is a terrible time to try and buy a graphics card, but most especially if you're trying to buy a brand new, next-gen GPU like the RTX 3080. That doesn't mean it's impossible, however: you just might have to be a bit creative, or y'know, buy a whole PC.

How to bag an RTX 30-series graphics card before Christmas

Realistically, the only way you're going to get your hands on some Nvidia Ampere gaming power this side of the new year is by buying a pre-built gaming PC. Spending a couple of thousand dollars on a new system might seem like overkill, but at some point the upgrade dance will run its course and you'll find you're hitting more expensive bottlenecks.

You lack a decent SSD, for example, but your current setup doesn't support the latest drives, or your CPU is holding back your GPU and now you need a whole new chip and motherboard.

At some point you'll need to start a new build from scratch and, these days, whether you build it yourself or get a system builder to do it for you barely makes a difference in overall price, only in your choice of parts. But even that has gone by the wayside as there are now fewer GPU options than the great crypto mining wars of 2017.

Alienware

https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/sh...FSnPKAUd8pIIFQ

The Alienware Aurora R11, and Ryzen-based R10 for that matter, are our picks for the best gaming PC right now, and the Intel-based version at least has already been updated to include the latest Nvidia graphics cards. And, what's more, there's an actual, honest-to-goodness Black Friday gaming PC deal on the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 Auroras too.

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It might only be $50, but it's a discount on a shipping Ampere machine. And if you mess around with the configurator you can squeeze the price down a touch.

We've checked out the delivery times for a couple of different locations in the US and we're seeing Dell being able to drop an RTX 3080-powered gaming PC to our doors within two weeks. In some places on the West Coast you can get it delivered on December 3. That's next week.

You could have an RTX 3080 next week, people.

iBuyPower

https://www.ibuypower.com/?cm_mmc=CJ...3c08fa0a240610

But Alienware isn't the only system builder offering RTX 3080 or RTX 3070-based gaming PCs, as iBuyPower has also got a bunch of Ampere rigs, at lower prices, that it promises will also be in your hands ahead of Christmas.

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Origin PC

https://www.originpc.com/promotion/?...dium=affiliate

Origin PC is also in the race to get you a new Nvidia GPU before Christmas, but it's not going to be an RTX 3080. OriginPC is estimating that it will be around 29 - 31 business days right now before it can ship you an RTX 3080 machine, but only 6 - 8 days for either an RTX 3070, or the RTX 3090 big boi.

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Corsair

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Catego...1acyI0&irgwc=1

There was a time earlier this week when you could have bagged a Corsair RTX 30-series machine this side of the new year, but unfortunately the Corsair Vengeance i7200, which ships with an RTX 3080 inside it, seems to be out of stock for now. Looks like even Corsair has run out of Ampere GPUs.

But the Vengeance i7200 is a super powerful machine, but then it's also super expensive. Inside is the 10-core, 20-thread Core i9 10850K, 32GB of 3,200MHz RAM (of course there is, it's Corsair), a 1TB NVMe SSD, a 2TB HDD, and that all-important RTX 3080.

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