5 ms·

Seriously? I find this hard to believe - prices of GPUs have been ridiculously high (much higher than at launch) for so long precisely because the supply was so

by Tenoke 8y ago

Seriously? I find this hard to believe - prices of GPUs have been ridiculously high (much higher than at launch) for so long precisely because the supply was so short. Pretty much every supplier I've seen would either sell out any high-end Nvidia GPUs almost as soon as they got them or would ramp up the price more and more. This is either an incorrect rumour or some very weird shitty strategy by Nvidia that backfired hard (I lean towards the former). Even now OEMs should have very little problems selling cards at (above) MSRP so there must be something more going on.

nolok 8y ago
Prices went up because of mining, and now that the craze is over price stay up because companies want to pocket the extra money. It's as simple as that.
jsiepkes 8y ago
NVidia probably liked the high prices (because of miner demand), produced accordingly and kept the price stable. These high prices probably ensure a nice profit margin for a longer time then normal during this stage of the product's life cycle. However a side effect might be somewhat slower sales then they planned (for example because miners will buy anyway but gamers are waiting for the nextgen cards). That means they're left with a lot of stock, which sells, but not at their normal rate. NVidia normally has a very predictable product life cycle but I think they are now in something that is (to them) uncharted territory. This could lead to stuff like their accountants saying: "You've got an awful lot of stock which isn't selling as fast as you thought. We think that's a risk". Which might compel them to set money aside for stock risks.
- endorphone 8y ago
  The majority of the price hike happened in the supply chain and didn't flow through to nvidia. The demand itself was a benefit, of course (simply selling more), but nvidia's source pricing didn't change. nvidia spoke out against mining because their concern was that gamers would move to the PS4 Pro, XboxX, etc, due to the shortage, which could hurt them in the long term.
  - dapole 8y ago
    And I think it was a very valid concern. I put off upgrading my gaming tower to 4K for another 2-3 years last year when prices were insane, and instead got an xbox one x. I know that all the games would run better on my pc but when the marginal cost is so much higher to upgrade my GPU that it’s frankly more than good enough.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
crunchlibrarian 8y ago
Yes that was true six months ago it is not any more.
jannes 8y ago
Quote from the last earnings call: "[...] my sense is that there's a fair amount of pent-up demand still. Fortnite is still growing in popularity. PUBG is doing great. And then we've got some amazing titles coming out. And so my sense is that the overall gaming market is just really, is super healthy. And our job is to make sure that we work as hard as we can to get supply out into the marketplace. And hopefully, by doing that, the pricing will normalize and the gamers can buy into their favorite graphics card at a price that we hope they can get it at." - Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidea CEO
- j-c-hewitt 8y ago
  You can run Fortnite on a toaster though. The recommended specs are an Nvidia GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    Meanwhile PUBG requires three 1080-tis and a whole lot of luck for a stable framerate
ponzored 8y ago
Miner demand was about 50% of sales. Admittedly this is because a lot of gamers were turned off by high prices. That demand has evaporated since the price of Bitcoin alternatives (eg. Ethereum) has plummeted, and the difficulty of mining is still very high since now ASICs can mine many coins more efficiently than consumers GPUs. Plus it seems like Nvidia are stuck with a lot of low-end chips. Many miners were buying things like the 1060. However, Nvidia have no direct competition in the GPU space anymore. They can hold off their next product launch for months and wait for their inventory to clear.
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  >Nvidia have no direct competition in the GPU space anymore At what level? AMD does the same thing in GPU they do in CPU: They might not hold the overall performance crown, but their value is often better at several tiers than their competition. I really want an RX 580.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nursie 8y ago
    The 580s, AFAICT, are only really competitive with nVidia's mid range and have been priced higher for some time due to mining. The Vegas have not been price competitive with nVidia's higher end offerings, have been very power hungry and very hot. AMD needs to pull something out of the bag, it's being left behind.
    - broknbottle 8y ago
      The Vega cards (56 and 64) were definitely priced competitively as NVidia felt the need to release the 1070 Ti out of nowhere. It sits in a weird price / performance area smack dab between the 1070 and 1080 cards. In addition, the Vega architecture is pretty efficient and your statement about being power hungry and very hot is false.
      - 8y ago
cptskippy 8y ago
Nothing you said is wrong but your argument is based on the incorrect assumption that they're talking about high-end GPUs. The article states that the oversupply is in low-end GPUs not suitable for mining.

by Tenoke 8y ago

nolok 8y ago

Prices went up because of mining, and now that the craze is over price stay up because companies want to pocket the extra money. It's as simple as that.

jsiepkes 8y ago

NVidia probably liked the high prices (because of miner demand), produced accordingly and kept the price stable. These high prices probably ensure a nice profit margin for a longer time then normal during this stage of the product's life cycle. However a side effect might be somewhat slower sales then they planned (for example because miners will buy anyway but gamers are waiting for the nextgen cards). That means they're left with a lot of stock, which sells, but not at their normal rate. NVidia normally has a very predictable product life cycle but I think they are now in something that is (to them) uncharted territory. This could lead to stuff like their accountants saying: "You've got an awful lot of stock which isn't selling as fast as you thought. We think that's a risk". Which might compel them to set money aside for stock risks.

endorphone 8y ago
The majority of the price hike happened in the supply chain and didn't flow through to nvidia. The demand itself was a benefit, of course (simply selling more), but nvidia's source pricing didn't change. nvidia spoke out against mining because their concern was that gamers would move to the PS4 Pro, XboxX, etc, due to the shortage, which could hurt them in the long term.
- dapole 8y ago
  And I think it was a very valid concern. I put off upgrading my gaming tower to 4K for another 2-3 years last year when prices were insane, and instead got an xbox one x. I know that all the games would run better on my pc but when the marginal cost is so much higher to upgrade my GPU that it’s frankly more than good enough.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

crunchlibrarian 8y ago

Yes that was true six months ago it is not any more.

jannes 8y ago

Quote from the last earnings call: "[...] my sense is that there's a fair amount of pent-up demand still. Fortnite is still growing in popularity. PUBG is doing great. And then we've got some amazing titles coming out. And so my sense is that the overall gaming market is just really, is super healthy. And our job is to make sure that we work as hard as we can to get supply out into the marketplace. And hopefully, by doing that, the pricing will normalize and the gamers can buy into their favorite graphics card at a price that we hope they can get it at." - Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidea CEO

j-c-hewitt 8y ago
You can run Fortnite on a toaster though. The recommended specs are an Nvidia GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  Meanwhile PUBG requires three 1080-tis and a whole lot of luck for a stable framerate

ponzored 8y ago

Miner demand was about 50% of sales. Admittedly this is because a lot of gamers were turned off by high prices. That demand has evaporated since the price of Bitcoin alternatives (eg. Ethereum) has plummeted, and the difficulty of mining is still very high since now ASICs can mine many coins more efficiently than consumers GPUs. Plus it seems like Nvidia are stuck with a lot of low-end chips. Many miners were buying things like the 1060. However, Nvidia have no direct competition in the GPU space anymore. They can hold off their next product launch for months and wait for their inventory to clear.

unethical_ban 8y ago
>Nvidia have no direct competition in the GPU space anymore At what level? AMD does the same thing in GPU they do in CPU: They might not hold the overall performance crown, but their value is often better at several tiers than their competition. I really want an RX 580.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Nursie 8y ago
  The 580s, AFAICT, are only really competitive with nVidia's mid range and have been priced higher for some time due to mining. The Vegas have not been price competitive with nVidia's higher end offerings, have been very power hungry and very hot. AMD needs to pull something out of the bag, it's being left behind.
  - broknbottle 8y ago
    The Vega cards (56 and 64) were definitely priced competitively as NVidia felt the need to release the 1070 Ti out of nowhere. It sits in a weird price / performance area smack dab between the 1070 and 1080 cards. In addition, the Vega architecture is pretty efficient and your statement about being power hungry and very hot is false.
    - 8y ago

cptskippy 8y ago

Nothing you said is wrong but your argument is based on the incorrect assumption that they're talking about high-end GPUs. The article states that the oversupply is in low-end GPUs not suitable for mining.