Many of our industry sources are telling us that Kepler based GTX 680 desktop cards will be hard to get.

Despite quite high prices, these cards will sell out very quickly simply as they will be a better choice than similarly priced AMD cards. However, at the same time, AMD can mess up Nvidia’s launch by dropping prices and making its cards more attractive, but this is something that might happen close to GTX 600 series Kepler 28nm launch.

Partners would not be partners if they would not complain about the quantity of Kepler cards that they will get at launch and weeks to come. They all think they deserve and should get more, but they are still convinced that the new cards will sell well.

If you are after GTX 680, our advice is to look for one at launch day, scheduled for March 23 and immediately buy one. Otherwise you will probably end up waiting. The 28nm process is not at great yield levels but it is still reportedly better than the transition to 40nm a few years ago. Nvidia is also having to use a lot of capacity to service OEM deals in both notebook and desktop segment. That will swallow many of the 28nm Kepler based cards.

Nvidia lovers have not much to worry about this as notebooks get lower TDP chips, but since the 680 is close to 200W TDP this remains desktop-only card that will only end up in some high-end desktop machines.