US-based Nvidia partner EVGA has reported that a shipment of GPUs it sent to a distribution center has been stolen from a truck.
A forum post by EVGA product manager Jacob Freeman states:
“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.”
“These graphics cards are in high demand and each has an estimated retail value starting at $329.99 up to $1959.99 MSRP.”
The retail value probably explains the motivation for the crime – either someone hopes to resell them or a crypto-miner will just invent a cut-price rig.
The RTX-30 range is mostly aimed at gamers and content creators.
As such this heist will make it even harder to score a GPU for those who suffer from low pixel counts and/or refresh rates.
Those who use GPUs for other tasks can already wait months to get their hands on the devices, as COVID-crimped supply chains continue to delay production.
Freeman’s post doesn’t say how many GPUs were stolen, or if the truck was carrying anything else.
Regardless, Freeman did warn buyers that buying stolen property and “concealing the sale or withholding” of stolen goods is a crime.
The GPU’s stolen will require registration, as such, Freeman points out that those trying to register stolen goods will not succeed.
It’s likely that hackers will use false details to register.
Besides a VPN and/or Tor will further aid them to be more smart enough to hide their activity.
StopRTX30theft@evga.com is an email address EVGA has created to hasten the discovering of the culprits.
There is no indication that this situation will end anytime soon.
However, it can be recalled that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had said in August that he anticipates “a supply constrained environment for the vast majority of next year.”
