The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 video card hits stores on February 25 for $ 329 MSRP, and while it may be the hardware manufacturer’s lowest-tier offering, the card is likely to have extremely high demand and little supply. With that in mind, we’ll reveal when the 3060 should go on sale, offer some reseller links, and share our own tips to ensure you get your order on time. The rush is about to start again, so here is everything you should know.
What time is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 released?
NVIDIA
Although all previous NVIDIA RTX GPUs were launched around 9:00 AM on launch day, NVIDIA officially announced different plans for the 3060. In an email sent to the press, NVIDIA said the RTX 3060 should be available at national retailers around 12:00 EST on February 25.
That said, as we saw with the Sony PS5 pre-order fiasco in September, it may not hurt to have your guides ready at 9am EST, in case some stores decide to release their stock a little earlier. Even though NVIDIA has probably established strict sales clauses with its partner stores, it never hurts to be too prepared on the day of the GPU launch.
Pre-order links
Now that you know exactly when the RTX 3060 should be on sale, it’s time to find out where you might want to buy one. NVIDIA is not selling the Founder’s Edition version of 3060, which means that all versions of the card will be offered by third-party manufacturers. Keeping this in mind, you can start your search at third party stores before visiting the NVIDIA website itself.
This list of retailers is not entirely exhaustive, but here are some of the best places to secure a 3060 on launch day. We have already cached the pages to search the 3060, so hopefully they will be filled in correctly as soon as the cards are published.
B&H, in particular, avoided the latest graphics card launches on launch day, but we thought it might be useful to include the store on our list as an outlet, once all other options have been completely exhausted.
Best tips for ordering an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
NVIDIA
You have the official launch time and some links you can use to pre-order the 3060, so now we are going to offer some useful tips to allow you to get your card in front of those annoying bots. Some of these tips may be obvious to experienced online shoppers, but here are some retail tactics that we learned after successfully securing some high-tech items during the pandemic.
- Pre-enter payment information: With the exception of the official NVIDIA store, all of the resellers listed above allow customers to enter their payment information into an account at any time before the purchase is made. With that in mind, you must add in advance each credit, debit or Paypal you intend to use for the store of your choice. When the order flow begins to arrive, stores sell products to the quickest payer. They will not wait for the person who is still entering the card number at checkout. If you don’t like the security implications of storing credit cards, you can always delete the data after the sale.
- Follow some solid sources: While updating product pages sometimes works, it also costs nothing to set up alerts for some business-focused Twitter accounts. We like accounts like Wario64 and IGN Offers which usually provide links to retailers or updates on the availability of items from moment to moment. The minutes it takes for a retailer’s stock alert email to send will not be fast enough for the 3060, so depend on Twitter for faster information.
- Apps are fast: Also related to speed, many shoppers find that buying hot items through smartphone apps is faster than using a desktop site. This is especially true if you have your payment information entered in advance. Some have also found that the product pages of the GPU RTX are displayed first on the mobile phone. We still like the desktop, but anyone who has a good phone may want to consider this path.
- Use your best hardware: Needless to say, given that you are about to interact with sites and applications that will be very overwhelmed, you should always go into battle using the best possible hardware. Even if you are only working on a browser, you still need to make sure that there are no hardware problems that can slow you down. Especially in the GPU race, every second counts.
- Sneaky Best Buy: While most sites like Amazon and Newegg tend to sell all of their GPU inventory immediately, Best Buy tries to scale its sales in an effort to ensure that real people can protect their products. This means that, when it comes to sales hours, Best Buy may not have any cards available until 12:30 pm EST or even 1pm. Even after launch, the “add to cart” button may flash and shut down at an unpredictable interval. Take a closer look at Best Buy, because you might be lucky when the 3060 runs out elsewhere.
The NVIDIA GeForce 3060 hits stores on February 25 for $ 329 MSRP.
Are you planning to order an RTX 3060 on Thursday? What are your best pre-order tips for securing hot items? Tell us in the comments section!