Last week's launch of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 was a bit of a mess. There were no pre-orders for the next-generation graphics card, inventory quickly sold out at retailers in the US and UK, and the GPU fetched ridiculous prices on eBay.

Nvidia realized it had dropped the ball with the RTX 3080 launch and posted an apology for the process. They also mentioned that retailers should stock up more and use their "Product Finder" tool to search for retailers that have RTX 3080 in stock.

We had a hard time finding retailers with RTX 3080 in stock, so we may need to be a little patient until the inventory is replenished. Alternatively, one could pre-order the Xbox Series X and Series S and wait.

"The GeForce RTX 3080 is in full production; we started shipping GPUs to partners in August and are increasing supply every week," Nvidia said.

"Our partners are also ramping up production capacity to meet unprecedented demand. We understand that many gamers cannot afford the GeForce RTX 3080 right now and are doing everything we can to catch up quickly.

"We have an excellent supply. Initial demand for our new GPUs typically exceeds supply. Our global network of partners is doing everything they can to bring new GPUs to the more than 100 million GeForce gamers worldwide.

Nvidia noted that when the RTX 3080 went on sale, many bots and resellers jumped on the website to get their hands on the new graphics card before others did. Nvidia has moved to cancel such malicious orders and is now working with these Nvidia has processes in place to curb such dubious purchasers. But bots and resellers aside, Nvidia noted that when the RTX 3080 went on sale, its online store was flooded with more than 10 times the traffic it received at the launch of the GeForce RTX 2000 series graphics cards.

"We expected record demand (for the RTX 3000 series), but the enthusiasm was overwhelming. We were not prepared for this level and neither were our partners. We apologize for this," Nvidia said.

In short, the RTX 3080 was too popular. But work is underway behind the scenes to at least replenish inventory and protect the RTX 3080 from people trying to get it just to sell it.

Nvidia's very high-end GeForce RTX 3090 will be available on September 24, so Nvidia needs to ensure a successful launch of this graphics card and not see frustrated fans drift to the upcoming AMD Big Navi graphics card instead AMD Big Navi graphics card to be released instead.