Trying to find a place to buy an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 can be frustrating, discouraging, and even maddening. But thanks to MSI, there are at least a few new models on the horizon that may offer new opportunities to get your hands on the GPU before it disappears again. [They are the GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Trio 10G, GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio 10G, GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Trio Plus 10G, and GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Trio 10G. They all share the same dimensions and triple-fan cooler design, differing only in maximum boost clock speed and power consumption.

In fact, they are also almost identical to the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio released last year, but somehow an ounce lighter. No details on release date or price were given. Still, for many prospective buyers, price may not be as much of an issue as availability.

If you are not so picky about which board partner manufactures them, the addition of the RTX 3080 model to the market will theoretically make it slightly easier to find stock. However, as we have seen many times throughout the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series, overall supply levels remain low and demand is always above it. The impact of digital currency miners and scalpers buying up the market has also helped little.

So while it's probably worth keeping an eye on these MSI cards, those hoping to find RTX 3080 stock should treat them as just another potential target rather than a turning point in this major GPU shortage we've been living through for months ...

At the very least, we are seeing attempts to get gaming graphics cards into the hands of actual gamers; Newegg's lottery system is intended to take away the advantage of speedy purchases by scalper bots, and Nvidia is working with GeForce RTX 3060's Ethereum mining performance is being intentionally hampered to kill demand from miners. And the same appears to be happening with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.