Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series scalping generates over US$22 million in sales via eBay as AMD's Big Navi GPUs and Zen 3 CPUs also fall victim to profiteering

It’s not just consoles that are suffering from shortages forcing impatient consumers to look for other means for securing a purchase. Data engineer Michael Driscoll has been having a good look at how scalpers have been taking advantage of the demand for AMD’s new Big Navi cards, the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT, and the same company’s vaunted Zen 3 desktop processors: Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X, Ryzen 9 5900X, and the Ryzen 9 5950X. Driscoll also checked out analysis of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series in regard to scalper sales on eBay.

Turning to AMD first, although prices for the Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 chips are still inflated, they have dropped dramatically from the start of November, when the Ryzen 9 5950X was recorded at prices approaching 240% of its MSRP (US$799). Even with its scalper price on eBay currently dipping, the median cost for this impressive part is still a whopping US$1,395. Driscoll estimates that scalpers (and eBay) have made over US$574,000 in profit from the 2,216 Zen 3 chips that have been sold at hiked prices.

Big Navi cards have also been targeted by scalpers, with 454 units bringing in US$477,930 in sales apparently leading to US$201,694 profit. But the big money in regard to GPUs and CPUs has been tied up with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 series. It seems scalpers have got hold of 15,224 units altogether, with almost half of that number being the GeForce RTX 3080 SKU. Unfortunately for gamers, the RTX 3080’s reported performance and popularity has led to it being generally sold for double its MSRP (US$699).

The data engineer’s analysis for Ampere-based products results in an estimate of over US$22 million in sales, solely via eBay since mid-September, which points to a potential profit for scalpers and the platform of over US$9.5 million. Fortunately, looking at the graphs produced by Driscoll reveals that the high scalper prices are falling for most of these products as either Nvidia and AMD make more stock available or, more likely, gamers and PC enthusiasts decide to wait a bit longer for that Zen 3/Big Navi/Ampere component upgrade to become available at a reasonable price.

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