On Tuesday, July 20, select Best Buy locations around the US will have limited quantities of Nvidia Geforce RTX 30-series cards available for in-store purchase. If you've been searching for an elusive RTX 3080 Ti or any other RTX 30-series card on the Best Buy site, you may have noticed the 'In-Store Only Event' tag appear on some of the product listings. The notice links to a page that details this early morning opportunity to buy an RTX 30-series GPU.
"Blue Shirts at participating stores will start handing out tickets at 7:30 am local time [Tuesday morning]. We’ll hand out one ticket per customer in line. If you get a ticket, you will be guaranteed the opportunity to purchase a graphics card inside the store beginning at 8 am local time."
Best Buy did a similar event for the launch of the RTX 3080 Ti FE to thwart reseller bots scooping up all the online orders seconds after the stock is refreshed. Most online retailers have struggled with the same issue. While it's not convenient, hopefully this in-store event is a sign that GPU availability is increasing as 2021 rolls on. (Though, even if that happens, we heard recently that the high-end cards might get all the attention.)
These are the cities and stores which will be stocking the RTX 30-series GPUs:
Depending on where you live, you may have to get up pretty early in the morning to guarantee yourself a spot in a line by the time Best Buy employees (or "Blue Shirts," as the company puts it) start assigning tickets at 7:30 am on Tuesday. Purchases are limited to one per customer. Not that Best Buy is following whatever the state or local orders are regarding COVID safety protocols. If you're planning to venture into the morning mist looking for Tensor Cores, we wish you luck.
