Bottom line: Thursday, August 26 (that’s tomorrow) could be your next best opportunity to score an Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics card at MSRP, but you’ll need to prepare accordingly if you want to score one. Namely, you’ll have to drag yourself out of bed early, head to your local Best Buy and wait in line.
Best Buy has announced that it’ll have limited quantities of GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards available on August 26. Notably, the cards are only being offered in select stores, meaning bots shouldn’t be able to keep cards out of the hands of eager gamers.
At 7:30 a.m. local time, Best Buy employees will start handing out tickets to those in line. There’s a strict limit of one ticket per purchasing customer. Those with a ticket will lock in the right to purchase a graphics card inside the store starting at 8 a.m. local time.
Best Buy has a store locator on the RTX 30 Series landing page that can be used to check and see if any of your local stores will have Nvidia cards in stock. I struck out in my search, as the closest store to me that’ll have stock is more than three hours away.
Best Buy made no mention of how many cards will be available at each store or what specific cards shoppers will be able to choose from. According to Twitter user @GPURestock, roughly 17,000 total units are expected in stores comprised of 3090, 3080, 3080 Ti, 3070, 3070 Ti and 3060 Ti models.
The electronics retailer recommends shoppers wear masks, and noted that it’ll be complying with local laws governing safety guidelines.