RTX 3080

Boomer

Bronze Level Poster
This will not be a popular post, but for those interested in the ongoing delays ...

A few weeks ago, one of the regular contributors listed out some of the component supply problems. Looks like there is another one to add to the list. ABF substrate is a chemical used in the manufacturing of all high-end chips. The "A" in ABF stands for Ajinomoto ... which is the only company in the world that makes this chemical. According to various media reports [LINK] they cannot keep up with demand, leading to shortages and this may impact all CPU and GPU chips in 2021.

Just for fun: Ajinomoto's company tag line is "Eat well, live well" because they primarily make additives for the food industry and their website has lots of recipe ideas. No idea how they ended up being a circuit-breaker supplier to the semiconductor industry. A few less E-numbers and a little more glue for chips please.
 

Prime

Active member
This will not be a popular post, but for those interested in the ongoing delays ...

A few weeks ago, one of the regular contributors listed out some of the component supply problems. Looks like there is another one to add to the list. ABF substrate is a chemical used in the manufacturing of all high-end chips. The "A" in ABF stands for Ajinomoto ... which is the only company in the world that makes this chemical. According to various media reports [LINK] they cannot keep up with demand, leading to shortages and this may impact all CPU and GPU chips in 2021.

Just for fun: Ajinomoto's company tag line is "Eat well, live well" because they primarily make additives for the food industry and their website has lots of recipe ideas. No idea how they ended up being a circuit-breaker supplier to the semiconductor industry. A few less E-numbers and a little more glue for chips please.
Thanks for linking this. That's usually the case with building things this complex, one bottleneck of a compound/substrate/build material just causes chaos
 

whoami

Member
Can you PM me your build details, when you ordered and anything you’ve been advised in calls/emails? I’ll forward it to customer services manager and see if we can get anything sorted. Can’t promise anything but we’ll try.
I've been following this thread for a long time, after ordering my PC on Sept 29th – which puts me on 58 working days today – switched back from a STRIX 3080 a few weeks back after Ghosthud mentioned the lack of shipments from ASUS. While I'm ok with waiting until the stock is there, seeing others get their builds before I do has been quite annoying (good for them, but still...).

Called PCS today, and after nearly 1h40 waiting, the best I got was "I don't know why that's happened, but you should get one of the next cards that come in". Happy to PM @SpyderTracks too, but don't want to inundate you with PMs saying "oh I've not got my PC yet"
 

kozuki

Enthusiast
It seems more and more apparent that PCS somehow manage to miss people with longer pre-production times after a swap of components and need to be constantly chased after, there's something wrong within their chain of communication or the system that manages orders. It would be great if they could sort it out somehow or put more effort into looking after the oldest orders by date and contact them/sort out the order. It's not really convenient for the customers to chase after their order like this, especially for people outside the UK - calling would cost a fortune and doesn't always help as seen here
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
It seems more and more apparent that PCS somehow manage to miss people with longer pre-production times after a swap of components and need to be constantly chased after, there's something wrong within their chain of communication or the system that manages orders. It would be great if they could sort it out somehow or put more effort into looking after the oldest orders by date and contact them/sort out the order. It's not really convenient for the customers to chase after their order like this, especially for people outside the UK - calling would cost a fortune and doesn't always help as seen here
Your supposition is almost certainly wrong and people do need to be careful when accusing PCS, whether directly or indirectly, of disadvantaging certain customers. We've said on here many times already that you are free to post facts, but you really can't post innuendos without evidence.

This (sticky) post from @Ghosthud - a PCS staff member - says this in relation to your suggestion that PCS are 'missing people with longer pre-production times'...

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.

He also says this....

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.

...so longer wait time customers are prioritised. As far as the lack of communication/information goes he says this.....

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.
 

kozuki

Enthusiast
Your supposition is almost certainly wrong and people do need to be careful when accusing PCS, whether directly or indirectly, of disadvantaging certain customers. We've said on here many times already that you are free to post facts, but you really can't post innuendos without evidence.

This (sticky) post from @Ghosthud - a PCS staff member - says this in relation to your suggestion that PCS are 'missing people with longer pre-production times'...



He also says this....



...so longer wait time customers are prioritised. As far as the lack of communication/information goes he says this.....
I understand and I saw Ghosthud's posts, and I'm not accusing anyone, just pondering about how this situation could be made better without the need of people chasing their own orders like we see now, even if it's a small percentage of customers having to do that. In the end it's all down to PCS and their staff ultimately
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I understand and I saw Ghosthud's posts, and I'm not accusing anyone, just pondering about how this situation could be made better without the need of people chasing their own orders like we see now, even if it's a small percentage of customers having to do that. In the end it's all down to PCS and their staff ultimately
I think @Ghosthud was trying to explain why things are the way they are and that this is how PCS has chosen to operate.

You're free to email [email protected] with any suggestions you may have to improve your experience but these fora are not the place for these suggestions.
 

Masty

Active member
I've been following this thread for a long time, after ordering my PC on Sept 29th – which puts me on 58 working days today – switched back from a STRIX 3080 a few weeks back after Ghosthud mentioned the lack of shipments from ASUS. While I'm ok with waiting until the stock is there, seeing others get their builds before I do has been quite annoying (good for them, but still...).

Called PCS today, and after nearly 1h40 waiting, the best I got was "I don't know why that's happened, but you should get one of the next cards that come in". Happy to PM @SpyderTracks too, but don't want to inundate you with PMs saying "oh I've not got my PC yet"
If you change from Strix to standard persoanlly I don’t think you should just instantly go to the front of the queue you should be going in the pos of when you changed as that would be very unfair on someone who order standard and they were to miss out cause you have decided to change
 

Masty

Active member
So if you ordered on the 1st October for Strix then change to Standard 3080 on the 30th October your new position should be the 30th, as it is a different item, people that order standard aren’t going to randomly get strixs card so they should be treated as complete different cards IMO
 

scarpa1

Enthusiast
So if you ordered on the 1st October for Strix then change to Standard 3080 on the 30th October your new position should be the 30th, as it is a different item, people that order standard aren’t going to randomly get strixs card so they should be treated as complete different cards IMO
Its hard though whatever way its done, generally a lot of the other components will be the same in various builds so the person ordering on the 1st will have ordered other parts before someone on the 15th say.
Its not just the GPU people have ordered so for me the actually order date should remain as your queue position whatever you change.

Someone swapping a PSU say will not get put back in the queue, shouldnt apply to swapping a GPU either.
 

Smoggyuk

Bronze Level Poster
Staff member
I think @Ghosthud was trying to explain why things are the way they are and that this is how PCS has chosen to operate.

You're free to email [email protected] with any suggestions you may have to improve your experience but these fora are not the place for these suggestions.

still plodding along doing customer enquiries and will be doing so late into the evening.

The production night shift is currently taking over right now as we aim to work throughout the entirety of the weekend.

Without sounding stressed at the situation (not my first rodeo), estimations and communications may be all over the place right now.
It is crunch time and with the promise made to customers regarding the Christmas cut off we are doubling down to ensure that this is going ahead.

Just for context we have hired FedEx as well as DPD to ensure that no bottleneck exists in the goods out area.

Communications regarding the 3000 series will continue as normal, when updates are available the customer will be the first to know, until then we can only provide guesswork, which we would much rather avoid.
I understand and I saw Ghosthud's posts, and I'm not accusing anyone, just pondering about how this situation could be made better without the need of people chasing their own orders like we see now, even if it's a small percentage of customers having to do that. In the end it's all down to PCS and their staff ultimately

I have personally monitored all 3000 series orders to ensure that no staff have accessed or clicked the priority order section.

This has been continued since the release of the 3000 series and I will do my best to bulletin information for customer service agents to see and to ensure that our ethics are maintained and we are doing this based on our overall production queue.

PCSpecialist will NOT be exploring individual production lines for different graphics card selections, we are doing this based solely off of the order date, any changes to the order and the graphics card should not negatively impact your order unless you switch from a standard 3080 to a STRIX, this is known information however.
 

Guilders

Silver Level Poster
55 working days, you have the patience of a saint.

I have messaged disptach to update me on this one Monday morning, let's hope we can get you that dispatch date.

Have a great weekend my friend.
Couple of us in the seniors group at 65 days, we have a secret handshake which we can't remember what it is and at this rate memory will be going shortly and my xmas meal will be eaten through a straw lol

As long as my sons PC arrives as per your xmas guarantee I'll be patient a little while longer

Oh and I get my promotional items, that will go a long way to helping ;)
 

Masty

Active member
Its hard though whatever way its done, generally a lot of the other components will be the same in various builds so the person ordering on the 1st will have ordered other parts before someone on the 15th say.
Its not just the GPU people have ordered so for me the actually order date should remain as your queue position whatever you change.

Someone swapping a PSU say will not get put back in the queue, shouldnt apply to swapping a GPU either.
Yeah thats true it completely goes both ways however, I am weirdly confident that my time will be up soon. Then again I’ll still be scrolling through here if that’s not the case.
 

whoami

Member
I don’t think it’s been stated anywhere, so may be a question for @Ghosthud — what would happen if a shipment of 50 STRIX cards appeared next week (either as a sole delivery, or ahead of anything else). Would people who have been waiting for a standard 3080 be offered the chance to upgrade to that card, or it go straight to those waiting for the STRIX?

Given we know it’s based off order date, I’d assume if all STRIX orders were satisfied prior to date X, they’d be offered, but unsure.

I’m not angling to try and get a STRIX here if one comes in, I’m genuinely curious what the approach would be, based off other sites (admittedly component sellers, not system builders, so could also differ because of that)
 

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
It has been stated if that happens they go to the people who have ordered the strix, i think you'll find it in here

 
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