Nvidia has announced that availability of the GeForce RTX 3070 will be two weeks later than originally intended, changing the date from October 15th to October 29th.
While the RTX 3080 and top-tier RTX 3090 have both launched already, actually getting hold of one is difficult to say the least. Demand for the new parts, even the $1,500 RTX 3090, has massively outstripping supply thus far, and with the RTX 3070 due to bring the Ampere architecture down to a more tantalising price point of $499 (£469), demand is expected to once again be massive, especially when it’s promising performance on par with or even better than the RTX 2080 Ti.
Nvidia’s sub-optimal supply has soured the launch somewhat for both end users and Nvidia’s board partners, who are desperate to cash in on an easy sale but simply cannot when they don’t have the GPUs to begin with. With that in mind, Nvidia is hoping the new release date will allow it to better meet the global demand:
‘We’ve heard from many of you that there should be more cards available on launch day. To help make that happen, we are updating the availability date to Thursday, October 29th. […] This shift will help our global partners get more graphics cards into the hands of gamers on launch day,’ reads the official announcement.
As far as we know, the October 15th reviews embargo remains in place, but that could easily change as well. Still, with the new availability date now coming a day after AMD’s much-anticipated RDNA 2 / RX 6000 Series event on October 28th, keeping the performance reveal ahead of it would help keep Nvidia in the headlines and RTX 3070 demand fuelled – not that it needs it, in all likelihood.
Have you got your heart set on the RTX 3070 for your next GPU? And if so, when do you reckon you’ll actually have one? Let us know in the comments below or head over to our Discord.