The good news is that more photos of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti partner card have surfaced, further hinting at a release in the very near future

The bad news is that a retailer in the United Arab Emirates is selling the MSI Suprim X version of the RTX 3080 Ti for 12,500 AED (about $3,500 including tax) In other words, this is not a very encouraging prospect for a normal launch with ample inventory

Tech YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead tweeted an image of a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti, while Reddit user u/FaisalKhatib appears to be stacked with MSI cards in a UAE store He posted the shot [However, the MSI Suprim model appears to be virtually identical to the GeForce RTX 3080 Suprim X 10G, so if you're curious about the GPU's size, take a look there

The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti release date was supposedly pushed back from May to June, but the fact that these partner cards are already shipping confirms rumors that a launch is imminent However, it is unfortunate that this development is accompanied by an obvious attempt to raise the price; we do not know exactly what the RTX 3080 Ti's MSRP will be, but we can be sure that it will not be anywhere near $3,500

Sadly, this follows a pattern of less-than-respectable retailer behavior surrounding Nvidia's latest graphics card: the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, which, due to the global GPU shortage and growing interest in cryptocurrency mining, launched earlier this year just before It was priced several hundred dollars above the recommended price

The RTX 3080 Ti was released with a hash rate limiter designed to limit its availability to miners, but with little GPU inventory available, it is not surprising that some retailers, especially resellers, tried their luck at similarly inflated pricesRTX 3080 Ti's driver software has not yet been released, as well