Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 prices hiked as high as €699.90 (US$849) before February 25 launch as gamers blame crypto miners for retailer gouging tactics

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 will be officially launched on February 25 and there are already reports (via VideoCardz, h/t The Determinator) appearing of the Ampere-based graphics card having its MSRP hiked to exorbitant levels. In one instance, a Portuguese retailer called PCDIGA is currently showing a price of €699.90 (US$849) for the Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB GDDR6 Twin Edge OC graphics card. According to a screenshot, this same board had been previously priced at €599.90 (US$728). However, the largest price hike difference shown at this retailer was for the non-OC variant of the Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 board, which went from €490 (US$595) to €689 (US$836) in the space of a week.

That particular GeForce RTX 3060 price hike of €199 (US$242) represents a rise of +40.6% over the previous price, and the current cost is a whopping +109.4% over Nvidia’s MSRP. Another European retailer, ProShop, has also been getting handy with the price tags, and it now has boards ranging from €499 (US$605) up to €659 (US$800). Retailers in the UK seem to be holding back a little at the moment, with CCL, which previously displayed high RTX 3060 prices, now removing the SKUs, and Scan mostly not listing prices for the upcoming graphics cards. However, Scan does have a price listed for one board, the Zotac Gaming Twin Edge variant, at £299. This is the same as Nvidia’s MSRP for the UK, so it will be interesting to see how much it changes before launch.

It seems reasonable to presume that a similar picture will be painted in the North American market too, with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 desktop graphics card going well beyond MSRP for a basic variant. Obviously not all AIB boards are created the same, so there is always a higher price to pay for greater customizations. But the additional retailer price-gouging tactics have been blamed partly on the current crypto mining boom, with the astonishing prices for coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum once again encouraging miners to snap up mining-capable GPUs (desktop and laptop) in bulk. Unsurprisingly, retailers will want to take advantage of this huge demand, thus hiking prices and leaving the likely short supply of RTX 3060 cards in the hands of crypto miners who will gladly pay the exorbitant prices as they can quickly recoup the cost.

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