Nvidia RTX 30-Series Graphics Cards Stolen in Truck Heist

Someone has stolen a shipment of GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards from a truck in Southern California. According to a post on the EVGA forums, someone lifted the graphics cards on October 29 as they were en-route to a distribution center.

“Please take notice that on October 29, 2021,a shipment of EVGA GeForce RTX 30-Series Graphics Cards was stolen from a truck en route from San Francisco to our Southern California distribution center,” the post said. “These graphics cards are in high demand and each has an estimated retail value starting at $329.99 up to $1959.99 MSRP.”

The post didn’t detail which specific models of cards were in the theft or how many cards were stolen, but $329 to $1959 covers a wide range. The lowest would be an RTX 3060 and the highest a RTX 3090. It is almost impossible to purchase a graphics card at its suggested retail price right now. NVIDIA’s 3000 series of cards sold out instantly when they were released in 2020, crashing several websites.

Nvidia’s cards were hard to obtain before the full scale of the chip shortage we’re currently in became obvious, and demand hasn’t slowed down almost a year later. The reasons for the shortage are complicated. Demand is high because the pandemic forced people to work from home and people took up gaming as a hobby. NVIDIA can’t keep up with manufacturing because of the demand for silicon chips. And graphics cards are a key component in cryptocurrency mining.

The high demand has created incentives for bots and criminals to acquire every card they can and sell them at incredible markups. RTX 3060s are selling around $700 on eBay, roughly double what EVGA sells them for. In its post, EVGA noted it’s against the law to buy and sell stolen goods. “It is also a criminal and civil offense to ‘conceal, sell, withhold, or aid in concealing selling or withholding’ any such property,” the post said.

EVGA also implied that it knows the serial number of every graphics card that was part of the shipment. “If you are able to successfully register your product and see it under My Products, then your product is NOT affected by this notice, you can also check the serial number at the EVGA Warranty Check page to see if it is affected,” the post said. “EVGA will NOT REGISTER or HONOR ANY WARRANTY or UPGRADE claims on these products.”

EVGA did not immediately respond to Waypont’s request for comment.