Desperate to buy a PC graphics card? Nvidia is preparing to raffle off spots to own 300 RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards. But you’ll have to pay extra to obtain them.
The cards are part of a $1,450 bundle revolving around the hit shooter Doom Eternal. On Wednesday, Nvidia and the game’s developer Bethesda announced a raffle “to win a spot in line” to buy the collection for consumers in the US, Canada and Europe.
“300 lucky gamers, whose names will be selected at random, will have the opportunity to purchase this killer deal,” Nvidia said in an email about the event.
Why Nvidia won’t just sell the 300 graphics cards in stores was left unsaid. But the GPU up for grabs is the RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, which retails for $1,199. Earlier this month, the same card was sold exclusively in Best Buy stores, which created massive lines at locations across the country. Unfortunately, many customers came away empty-handed.
The upcoming bundle means you’ll have to pay $250 extra for the card. In return, you get some additional Doom Eternal merchandise, including a T-shirt, mouse pad, and a Doom Slayer mini-figurine.
The raffle is eerily similar to how Newegg has been selling graphics cards during the great GPU shortage. Every day, the retailer holds a lottery for spots to buy Nvidia’s RTX 3000 graphics cards. On the plus side, the system eliminates the stressful first come, first serve approach to trying to obtain the products. However, Newegg will often bundle the GPUs with other PC components, such as power supplies, motherboards and monitors, raising the full price.
To enter the raffle for the Doom Eternal bundle, US and Canadian users can go to the official website. It’ll ask you for your full name and email address, and then request you to enter a verification code to complete the registration. European users can go to the EU-based Bethesda website to participate.
The raffle ends on July 7th. Winners will be drawn the next day, and then be notified. “If you are picked, you will have 48 hours to complete your order through a unique link sent to your email address. If you do not complete your order within the given period, your slot will be forfeited and we’ll draw another name to take your place,” Bethesda’s website says.
The companies are offering the raffle as Doom Eternal is getting upgraded to use Nvidia’s ray-tracing reflections and DLSS technology for better graphics. The updates will arrive to the PC version of the game on June 29th.
