PCS Posts on RTX3080 stock position

[Smoggyuk]

Hoping to bring some light to this situation, I have been trying to buy my own 3000 series card. Shedding blood, sweat and tears providing around the clock support. Here is the answer from purchasing and I thought it was worth a laugh.

Our purchasing team is working around the clock, we are pursuing every channel, every supplier, and every corner of the GPU void. It is dry, it's empty and man is it tough to communicate this to customers who have been waiting so damn long!

This is not taking in to account the hours sacrificed from home life for our production staff, we have a double shift going into the early hours, overtime going into Sundays when we only operate Monday-Friday. I am currently in the office under strict COVID restrictions to train many new members of staff to ensure that our response times lower and our quality improves, many sacrifices are being made and we are doing it because we take a lot of pride in what we do.

With the greatest of respects, we are not holding your money hostage, it is difficult to have these funds in limbo especially at this specific time of the year. But we will absolutely aim to get the machine to you whenever possible, we will not provide estimations that could be wildly inaccurate as we have found this to be counterproductive, if the supplier is not revealing anything then we cannot possibly do the same.

I have personally been auditing all 3000 series orders to ensure that they maintain a steady order, that we are not prioritising customers if they complained more than the other. We are in this together and you have purchased goods under the understanding that it isn't guaranteed for Christmas, it sounds harsh and I really mean this in a positive light, but your patience will be rewarded and all we can ask for is your patience.

Our success is overwhelming since early March and you are welcome to play the smallest violin for the team, but as a super nerd at heart and a competitive gamer for many years, I feel your pain and we are working as hard as we can to make progress on these orders.

And just remember, we can't even play Cyberpunk 2077 without DLSS ON and RT turned OFF.

 

[Smoggyuk]

I appreciate this. I appreciate your hard work and your sacrifices. Honestly do. As someone who is working around the clock to bring service to customers, I feel your pain and understand your circumstances.

I/We understand there are stock issues. I/we understand the hardship. Although we sound like petulant children sometimes, we are not. We are just as in limbo as you are.

The problem is, as far as the general consensus goes, we believe that PCS is not getting ASUS Strix cards at all. This is fuelled by lack of stock or delivery timeframe information. And as much as we appreciate you reaching out to us, my understanding is that the general consensus is correct. Unless stated otherwise, we could be waiting indefinitely..

Cracking response and thank you for your support.

The ASUS Strix variant is in a bad place, a very bad place. BUT! it is again difficult to tell what the future holds for stock on this card.
We are currently in need of 446 units with 0 marked as available and in stock, the supplier update sheet also shows nothing.

But in the past we have seen suppliers update the docket and 500 units turn up within a week, it's strange and why ETA's just are not possible at this time.

Again vague and complete guesswork from me, but my experience hopefully provides some light to how rapidly things can change.

 

[Smoggyuk]

Nice update from ghost
But I ordered a ASUS strix 3080 my question is, if 500 of these cards became available tomorrow who would benefit from this
I placed my order on November 18th
Would I receive my order
Or would people who have ordered before me for the standard 3080 be given the chance to upgrade there card?

Well...

466 orders awaiting a STRIX 3080, if 500 turn up we have 34 left over?

These cards are allocated per position in the build queue. If someone had selected the standard 3080 and made the switch to a STRIX knowing these are in stock they will be entitled to one first. This is based off of current wait time and position in the build queue.

We do not have a build queue specifically for each card variant. But we will never give a standard 3080 customer a STRIX as a substitute.

it is easy to forget that we don’t just have 3000 orders to consider, we have servers, office computers, miniPCs, AIOs and laptops... and let’s not forget liquid series!

edit: just remember we do not operate as a component reseller, it is easy to make this unfair comparison, not saying that you have done but I thought it was worth noting.

for example one of our competitors can just sell you the card as a standalone item, they only have to measure that specific item and it’s stock level, they factor in order date and length of time waiting and dispatch it accordingly.

PCSpecialist do not have this luxury, we have to do it based off of the entire build queue including all areas of production.

As an example you could have a customer who has been waiting 40 working days with a standard 3080, it hasn’t shown up, they are informed that the STRIX has arrived, you could be someone who has ordered the STRIX and waited 25 working days and theoretically could have a viable build ready to go, but we would always give priority to the oldest order if they wish to make a change.

 

[Smoggyuk]

Would someone be able to be in a queue for 3080 but have a notification for an ASUS Strix 3080 if they became available?

I have personally done this for customers, all PCSpecialist staff have access to a stock alerts system, if you call or email and ask for a stock alert against a specific item we can drop you a follow up email or call for a heads up.

the effectiveness of this is of course down to the support agent, we have some lengthy wait times and outbound calls are rare, but a 1 minute email is no big deal.

 

[Smoggyuk]

@Ghosthud , that's something I get the impression that a lot of these folk don't really seem to understand, they seem to think that just because they have ordered the latest must have part that it means they come before joe bloggs who has ordered a complete system that costs the same if not less than that one single part

2020 has had a terrible side affect, I have seen a huge rise in entitlement.

We love people buying these crazy £6000 liquid series machines, they are awesome and to be in the presence of the hardware is a blessing.

but at the same time, we give the same attention in regards to the process to a £400 office miniPC, it may not peak our interest as much, but you are treated the exact same as the customer with the crazy gaming rig.

As a complaints handler the above distinction is brought up as some form of bargaining weight, news to the customer your order that has been in production for 10 working days that is £6000 isn’t getting built before the £400 machine that has been waiting for 25 working days!!

 

[Smoggyuk]

Ghost, thanks again coming in between us mere mortals to give us some light and hope I do appreciate you taking the time (which I am very sure is way out of your office hours by now).

I know this is not a fair question but If I may, what would you say the realistic possibility of 500 cards turning up in the next week or two ?

No problem! I’m just rocking the 5 month old to sleep and killing time.

And I believe I am the mere mortal in this situation, I am rocking my EVGA 2060 Super still, I am hoping for a 3070 just after the new year.

As for your question, we are 8 working days away from final call for Christmas orders, this stock is without a doubt not showing up until at least after Christmas.

damn, 8 working days away.

 

[Smoggyuk]

Oh wow. Best of luck there matey.
But I think I have you beat with my iMac 27 rocking a Radeon R9

Thanks for your honesty and transparency. I really do appreciate this level of communication after such a long time.
If you have seen my previous post, I was seriously considering cancelling my order and going with a different company just because of the clarity in regards to stock and possible wait times. Yes it may still not be clear with PCS but at least I know where I stand now which gives me a bit more will power to wait a bit longer.

Thank you.

Cheers, ok you win!

I have taken a quick look and I can understand how you feel about the situation. Not knowing is the hardest part, we can’t become complacent as a company and it is why I would rather pop in now and then to discuss any concerns.

all I can say is do what you need to do for your own personal situation, we can’t stop you from cancelling and if you find something elsewhere with a better promise it is worth considering!

Only thing I question is after sales and warranty support, I have worked for all manner of companies and I believe that we provide the best support, COVID has took our edge off but we will regain lost ground soon.

As one of the fortunate few who managed to bag a 3070 Founder’s Edition on release day, I can tell you it’ll be worth the wait when you finally get one. I’m grinning every time I boot up my system 🙂👍

Wow, I’m a sucker for the minimalist design of the FE, jealousy would be an understatement!

 

[Smoggyuk]

It’s a blessing to be this busy and we are not taking it for granted.

PCSpecialist get a wide variety of calls. Basic tracking enquiries and pre sales are the large majority. But we do offer technical support and it is common to see call lengths between 1 and 2 hours, this is not through incompetence, but to do a thorough job, it is sometimes required of us.

It is a mixed bag and with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Christmas cut off just been and gone we haven’t ever seen numbers like this, the pandemic situation is the cherry on top.

Exponential growth, coupled with the high demand for home work stations, it hasn’t been easy for the team and things are moving forward to alleviate the long wait times and to give breathing space for specialist colleagues so we can once again give the same standard of customer care we once did.

As a part of management within the customer care team I can promise everyone that recruitment drives have taken place, I have also assisted with the training with many of new starters. We are not officially in the office and select members have been juggling training whilst under very strict COVID measures. We have to be extremely careful with this type of job role as we cannot simply take in a new starter and expect them to understand the systems and hit the ground running, after all the job entails you to be a jack of all trades in the hopes to master them all (given time).

Many of PCSpecialists teams have doubled in size since March and we are still sat around 1-2 hour answer times, this is with call centre colleagues taking upwards of 40 calls a day each! It’s incredible but at the same time quite disheartening!

for some perspective we averaged around 3 minutes as our longest wait time throughout 2019 and we are now around 40/50 minutes.

with time and patience we will adjust and with the surplus of staff at the tail end of the pandemic we are hoping to see our plans come to fruition shortly.

thanks for all of your patience, we sincerely appreciate it.

 

[Smoggyuk]

Just checked my mail and my system has been built already and is now in testing... Can’t believe the speed of it. Went from being told this morning there was no 3070’s in stock and the chances of getting one before Christmas were slim to none, to being allocated one and the full system being built and tested within the same day! Now hoping it passes testing and is dispatched and arrives in time for Christmas! It’s cutting it close but I think there’s a slight chance! If they can pull this off, I’ll truly be amazed. If not, it was an outstanding effort and they’ll have my respect either way. If not before Christmas then I’m sure it’ll be shortly after

This is precisely why estimations of service are pretty much impossible. It used to be a standard 7:30am - 4:30pm shift in production. Now it is a split shift with a team twice as large and with a night shift that operates until 1am, we also have teams running in to Saturday and Sunday’s.

Literally speaking, customer services (me included) are playing catch up, often times we are trying to examine patterns of stock to produce adequate updates. The 3000 series and the AMD 5000 series has literally tipped all expectations upside down.

suppliers are NOT showing their hands and stock is turning up completely out of the blue, I believe we have some goods in agents and pre production agents that practically live at the HQ.

we are alleviating bottlenecks wherever possible and we are not slowing down until 1pm Christmas Eve.

We couldn’t be happier with providing some 3000 / 5000 series orders this side of Christmas.

 

[Smoggyuk]

if I am on 61 working days (12th of Oct order date) and switched from strix to non-strix, would changing back to strix allocate the card for me?
I understand if you cannot reveal that, but at this point, I gotta try asking

Knowing you are on 61 working days I have emailed you directly to discuss your order information.

when i'm expecting my machine? - queue position? stock levels? future expected order dates? future expected order quantities?

I have touched base on these topics in sticky posts and this thread, you are more than welcome to click through my profile and see all my responses. I believe that all customers should be given the opportunity to voice their concerns and of course have their opinion and i can share more detailed information if you wish to receive an email.

But I must stress that we have upwards of 10+ individual batch orders from many of our suppliers, each of which have request dates starting in November and early December, these have still not come to fruition and strictly NO ETA is being given from the manufactures.

Giving "queue" positions leads to inaccuracies and false hope under the assumption that we are not guaranteed any stock at this moment in time, this is not a failure of communication, but a failure of not being able to provide detailed communication.

We will not entertain guesswork under the current situation.

I must ask that you refrain from assuming and I can provide as much transparency as you require to make you feel more comfortable with your order.