Last week, we reported that NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 is ready to launch on February 25, but we have also seen several retailers list the pre-order card and some users even get their hands on the cards weeks before launch. We have now received information that an official Pakistan-based Palit video card dealer, known as ZAH Computers, is openly selling RTX 3060 cards at absurdly high prices.
Pakistani resellers break NDA, openly sell NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards 3060 weeks before launch at scaled prices
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card should have an initial MSRP of $ 329, but we know that MSRP doesn’t mean much today. However, ZAH Computers, an official reseller (AU Technologies as the primary distributor) of Palit video cards based in Pakistan, is selling the GeForce RTX 3060 video card 16 days before the official availability of these cards at retail.
Typically, South Asian retailers and distributors do not care much about official NDAs and we see that this is the case here. To top it off, this Palit GeForce RTX 3060 custom variant has been valued by the same retailer at $ 750 or 120,000 PKR (Pakistani rupees). To put things in perspective, this is more than double the MSRP. The dealer starts to justify the prices by blaming the high customs fees and import prices for this card which are simply excuses that these distributors and dealers are known for hiding and have been doing so for a long time.
The other thing is that these prices will not just drop when the official launch takes place on February 25th. Unlike preliminary pre-sale prices on the EU and US markets, Pakistan’s prices will remain intact and will only rise in light of rising inflation and the ever-decreasing value of the PKR compared to the dollar.
We have been informed that this ZAH Computers has sold several units and is easily available to buyers who are willing to pay prices on a scale basis. With the same amount of money, you can get the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 or, if you’re lucky, even an RTX 3080 video card, but that’s the price you have to pay to live in a totally unregulated market.
Although NVIDIA is unable to take any action on the current scalping situation, we expect that at least distributors like these will be dealt with by some stricter actions, considering that they are officially partners with Palit, which is a major NVIDIA AIB partner in region.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series ‘Ampere’ graphics card specifications:
| Graphics card name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Ampere GA106-300 | Ampere GA104-200 | Ampere GA104-300 | Ampere GA102-200 | Ampere GA102-300 |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Matrix size | TBC | 395.2 mm2 | 395.2 mm2 | 628.4 mm2 | 628.4 mm2 |
| Transistors | TBC | 17.4 billion | 17.4 billion | 28 billion | 28 billion |
| CUDA Cores | 3584 | 4864 | 5888 | 8704 | 10496 |
| TMUs / ROPs | 112/64 | 152/80 | 184/96 | 272/96 | 328/112 |
| Tensioner / RT cores | 112/28 | 152/38 | 184/46 | 272/68 | 328/82 |
| Base Clock | 1320 MHz | 1410 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1440 MHz | 1400 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1780 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1730 MHz | 1710 MHz | 1700 MHz |
| FP32 Compute | 13 TFLOPs | 16 TFLOPs | 20 TFLOPs | 30 TFLOPs | 36 TFLOPs |
| RT TFLOPs | 25 TFLOPs | 32 TFLOPs | 40 TFLOPs | 58 TFLOPs | 69 TFLOPs |
| Tensor-TOPs | 101 TOPs | 192 TOPs | 163 TOPs | 238 TOPs | 285 TOPs |
| Memory capacity | 12 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 10 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bus | 192 bits | 256 bits | 256 bits | 320 bits | 384 bits |
| Memory Speed | 16 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 384 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 760 Gbps | 936 Gbps |
| TGP | 170W | 175W | 220W | 320W | 350W |
| Price (MSRP / FE) | $ 329 US | $ 399 US | $ 499 US | $ 699 US | $ 1499 US |
| Release (availability) | February 25, 2021 | December 2, 2020 | October 29, 2020 | September 17, 2020 | September 24, 2020 |