Availability of the NVIDIA GTX 1080 is low pretty much everywhere in the UK currently, but even were that not the case the enthusiast market's focus would still be shifting inexorably to non-reference versions of the high end card. Typically equipped with superior cooling and factory overclocks beyond reference specifications, their lower baseline MSRP will serve as an extra sweetner to the ever so slightly more frugal members of the enthusiast fraternity. However, much like the Founder's Edition, non-reference models have been thin on the ground since the GTX 1080's launch; thankfully an EVGA UK rep on the OverclockersUK GPU Forums has opened up to outline expected availability on their own variants.

The verified vendor representative, going under the pseudonym Ben @ EVGA, was able to share this titbit of information on when retailers should expect to see their first batches of stock for various models:



For EVGA batches are of 50 units, so demand is unlikely to be quenched with the first shipment of each model. When quizzed on the reasoning behind the long lead times and the relatively low stock levels it was explained that the chief limitation was the number of GPUs received from NVIDIA, as well as the anticipated impact of a regional holiday in the Far East arriving at the end of this week.

EVGA is a primary AIB partner for NVIDIA, so it's likely that other manufacturers would be disadvantaged to at least the same extent. As a result we would expect stock of all GTX 1080's to remain scarce in the coming weeks. Similar issues may well be replicated with the GTX 1070, although that remains to be seen.