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I don't understand how we're multiple years into a GPU shortage from both vendors. $400 retail price cards sell for $800, presumably from scalpers. I read brea

I don't understand how we're multiple years into a GPU shortage from both vendors. $400 retail price cards sell for $800, presumably from scalpers. I read breathless reviews of how the latest card performs so well even though it's just $x MSRP and the reality makes that seem ridiculous. It shouldn't take 3 or 4 years to ramp up production that much. Yes, demand has increased, but again they've had years to react to that trend. I'd like to be able to buy a mediocre card for less than $500.

vlovich123 6y ago
I’m with you. This is a really strange situation. Unless these chips are really hard to manufacture for some reason or there’s some kind of component shortage, mobile manufacturers pump out billions of devices annually (meaning so does the supply chain pumping out the CPU/GPU SoCs). Maybe a node issue, but lasting multiple node sizes? If it’s crypto and persisted so long, then wouldn’t they have ramped up their pipelines? Is it that sales aren’t as good as they need them to be and artificial scarcity let’s them drive MSRP higher so that their revenues are a bit boosted? Maybe the flagships are way too complicated and expensive to manufacture with sales too few so that it basically amounts to nothing more than an expensive PR campaign? Maybe the real focus is primarily on cloud/mobile offerings? I really don’t know the details of the GPU business model so perhaps someone more knowledgeable can provide some insight. I’m really curious.
- rapsey 6y ago
  TSMC is the one building the chips for those mobile phones, consoles and GPUs. They are the bottleneck.
  - SSLy 6y ago
    Nvidia doesn't use them for their GeForces.
    - Narishma 6y ago
      They generally do, with some exceptions from time to time.
      - SSLy 6y ago
        The exception being the current generation of their consumer lineup.
  - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
    And they will continue to be. ASML (they make EUV machines) has a 2 year backlog and half their machines last year went to TSMC.
- fredzel 6y ago
  > or there’s some kind of component shortage There is a shortage of materials (ABF and glass substrates, PCB materials, GDDR6), that affects not only AMD/Nvidia but also car manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, VW, Ford etc.). It's caused by high demand and lower supply (due to covid)
vbezhenar 6y ago
When crypto bubble pops, there will be loads of used GPUs on the market and massive reduction of demand. I think that GPU manufacturers are afraid to scale because of that uncertainty. May be we need GPU futures.
- caogecym 6y ago
  Are serious miners using consumer grade graphic card for mining today? I thought they’d customize their own GPU solution and that the used GPUs because of bubble burst would not be usable for consumers.
  - onli 6y ago
    During the crypto bubble the miners often used regular gpus, sometimes with firmware modification for undervolting that were easily reversible. But we are not in a crypto bubble now, I'm not sure where gp is coming from with that comment.
    - josalhor 6y ago
      > But we are not in a crypto bubble now In the last year bitcoin is over 200%. Litecoin is almost over 100% (in fact, since April it is over 200%). I have no horse in this race, but I am not sure I would call it "not a bubble".
      - Jonnax 6y ago
        Hasn't these shifted to mostly ASIC?
        josalhor 6y ago
        I think you meant to reply to another comment.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        It's a bubble with some room to go even higher. Obviously it's going to pop one day but not today.
onli 6y ago
I don't understand how we're multiple years into a GPU shortage from both vendors. Why multiple years? It's unlikely the current shortage will take that long, and it only started at the end of last year. In Summer 2020 buying a gpu was not a problem. Then the RTX 3000 series launched with basically no cards actually being available, and all following releases were like that from both vendors. But both the RTX 2000 series and the Radeon RX 5000 cards have been easily available back then (okay, iirc the USA had some supply issues, but that was domestic Covid and not production related), so there was no reason for them to ramp up production for now during the last 3 or 4 years.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  If you want evidence check out this link. It shows the the lifetime prices of a GTX 1060 card since its release in 2016. It had an MSRP of $250, yet for most of it's life since sometime in 2017 it's been around $320 or higher, more than 125% of the MSRP, and, when this particular model was last available, over $400. Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350. https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U
  - onli 6y ago
    I run pc-kombo.com, a PC hardware builder. Even if right now PC hardware is no fun at all even for me, I'm fairly familiar with price development during the last years ;) > Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350. It's a high end 1060. Which in practice means almost nothing but that people will overpay for it, expecting better performance and quality than they'd get. The $400 price when last available is a pricing artifact of the end of cards lifetime. When they stop being available, some vendors will ask ridiculous prices to basically scam those that do not know they could get a newer better model instead, or are enterprise customers that have to buy the exact same model as the one to be replaced because of bureaucratic stupidity. Also, camelcamelcamel tracks Amazon prices. US Amazon is the most ridiculously overpriced hardware shop I've ever seen, with only occasional good offers in between. You can't take those prices of specific models serious. So yes, this 1060 might have had a "shortage" after it stopped being produced and even 1060s in general did have one at one point in time, but at the same time GTX 1650 Super, the GTX 1660, the GTX 1660 Super or especially a RX 480/580 had been readily available (after the crypto bubble of course).
danybittel 6y ago
Lots and lots of people built their first PC. Because being on lockdown and getting a stimulus check does that. Demand has gone up, shortage even on PSU. There's hardly any shipping through air, because that is usually done in cargo bay of passenger planes. (with 5x increase in air shipping prices), so most must happen through ship, and all ships are full. There is also Chinese new year, where fabrics are closed for a while. I do hope that this is a revival of the desktop PC!
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Yes, COVID has made this worse, but the trend extends back years. If you pick a random GTX 1060 card and look at its price trend (see my other replies in this thread for an example, I don't want to copy/paste spam) you'll see trends that, since sometime in 2017, were about 25% higher than MSRP and their lowest prices, often higher.
ksec 6y ago
>multiple years I think you are mixing up a few cycles into one. There hasn't been a GPU "shortage" for multiple years. But there are certainly shortages at different times in the past few years. Nvidia had to manipulate their Financial Numbers to cover up for excessive stock sitting in Channel due to Bitcoin crash. It took them 3 quarters ( and more ) to clear those inventory out. AMD had similar situation but their impact were much smaller due to less percentage using it for mining. This teach GPU vendor an important lesson. ( Edit: Imagine the worst case scenerio AMD has a new product launch and has ample of stocks while you have three quarter worth of old products not moving. ) Since then they are much more conservative with respect to forecast and planning. It is FAR better to have enough demand waiting for GPU than it is for GPU sitting in channel quite literally begging for their Distributors to sell them. This conservativeness has a knock-on effect on TSMC planning. At the start of pandemic everyone thought the economy could take a tank, which means forecast and estimation were even lower. But reality is all of a sudden PC sales and GPU sales are hitting new height due to more Stay at home and Gaming. Bitcoin is pushing into new height so casual miners are back. You are taking two conservative supply decision ( Previous over Supply and Pandemic ) and two Demand reality ( PC / Gaming and Bitcoin ). That is Four level of differences. Catching up takes time, and it doesn't help when the whole industry, not just GPU, but everything from WiFi, 5G Modem, SoC, CPU, Amazon Server GPU, NPU are all in demand. Both Intel and AMD grew 10% despite Intel having lower ASP ( i.e Higher Unit Sales ) and were selling as many as they could. The Silicon demand are far greater than even the most optimistic analysis has predicted.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Not really, there may have been ebbs & flows in demand, but the trend for the last 3-4 years has been prices much higher than retail: If you want evidence check out this link. It shows the the lifetime prices of a GTX 1060 card since its release in 2016. It had an MSRP of $250, yet for most of it's life since sometime in 2017 it's been around $320 or higher, more than 125% of the MSRP, and, when this particular model was last available, over $400. Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350: https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U
elorant 6y ago
You should thank Bitcoin for the spike in prices. Everyone and their dog are buying a GPU to crunch some coins. Even mid-range cards are 70% up from where they were a month ago. Fucking lunacy.
- robotnikman 6y ago
  I thought most people keen on mining bitcoin used ASIC's now, since the power cost of the GPU outweighs the profit of mining
  - rcxdude 6y ago
    There's a bunch of coins (largest being etherium) using a proof of work mechanism which is optimised for GPUs and can't really be more efficiently implemented by an ASIC (rough reason being it's limited by memory bandwidth, not hashing speed, and GPUs are basically already super optimised for memory bandwidth). This was a deliberate choice by the designers of the cryptocurrency because ASICs centralise mining even further. Only real reason to mention bitcoin is that basically all cryptocurrencies go up and down in price with bitcoin, so when bitcoin goes up in price, other cryptocurrencies tend to do so as well, incentivising mining all of them.
  - elorant 6y ago
    ASICs are not that easy to come by and they cost a lot. Newcomers to mining use whatever they can get their hands on.
  - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
    Depends on the cost of the coin. BTC has been climbing.

vlovich123 6y ago

I’m with you. This is a really strange situation. Unless these chips are really hard to manufacture for some reason or there’s some kind of component shortage, mobile manufacturers pump out billions of devices annually (meaning so does the supply chain pumping out the CPU/GPU SoCs). Maybe a node issue, but lasting multiple node sizes? If it’s crypto and persisted so long, then wouldn’t they have ramped up their pipelines? Is it that sales aren’t as good as they need them to be and artificial scarcity let’s them drive MSRP higher so that their revenues are a bit boosted? Maybe the flagships are way too complicated and expensive to manufacture with sales too few so that it basically amounts to nothing more than an expensive PR campaign? Maybe the real focus is primarily on cloud/mobile offerings? I really don’t know the details of the GPU business model so perhaps someone more knowledgeable can provide some insight. I’m really curious.

rapsey 6y ago
TSMC is the one building the chips for those mobile phones, consoles and GPUs. They are the bottleneck.
- SSLy 6y ago
  Nvidia doesn't use them for their GeForces.
  - Narishma 6y ago
    They generally do, with some exceptions from time to time.
    - SSLy 6y ago
      The exception being the current generation of their consumer lineup.
- PartiallyTyped 6y ago
  And they will continue to be. ASML (they make EUV machines) has a 2 year backlog and half their machines last year went to TSMC.
fredzel 6y ago
> or there’s some kind of component shortage There is a shortage of materials (ABF and glass substrates, PCB materials, GDDR6), that affects not only AMD/Nvidia but also car manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, VW, Ford etc.). It's caused by high demand and lower supply (due to covid)

vbezhenar 6y ago

When crypto bubble pops, there will be loads of used GPUs on the market and massive reduction of demand. I think that GPU manufacturers are afraid to scale because of that uncertainty. May be we need GPU futures.

caogecym 6y ago
Are serious miners using consumer grade graphic card for mining today? I thought they’d customize their own GPU solution and that the used GPUs because of bubble burst would not be usable for consumers.
- onli 6y ago
  During the crypto bubble the miners often used regular gpus, sometimes with firmware modification for undervolting that were easily reversible. But we are not in a crypto bubble now, I'm not sure where gp is coming from with that comment.
  - josalhor 6y ago
    > But we are not in a crypto bubble now In the last year bitcoin is over 200%. Litecoin is almost over 100% (in fact, since April it is over 200%). I have no horse in this race, but I am not sure I would call it "not a bubble".
    - Jonnax 6y ago
      Hasn't these shifted to mostly ASIC?
      - josalhor 6y ago
        I think you meant to reply to another comment.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      It's a bubble with some room to go even higher. Obviously it's going to pop one day but not today.

onli 6y ago

I don't understand how we're multiple years into a GPU shortage from both vendors. Why multiple years? It's unlikely the current shortage will take that long, and it only started at the end of last year. In Summer 2020 buying a gpu was not a problem. Then the RTX 3000 series launched with basically no cards actually being available, and all following releases were like that from both vendors. But both the RTX 2000 series and the Radeon RX 5000 cards have been easily available back then (okay, iirc the USA had some supply issues, but that was domestic Covid and not production related), so there was no reason for them to ramp up production for now during the last 3 or 4 years.

ineedasername 6y ago
If you want evidence check out this link. It shows the the lifetime prices of a GTX 1060 card since its release in 2016. It had an MSRP of $250, yet for most of it's life since sometime in 2017 it's been around $320 or higher, more than 125% of the MSRP, and, when this particular model was last available, over $400. Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350. https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U
- onli 6y ago
  I run pc-kombo.com, a PC hardware builder. Even if right now PC hardware is no fun at all even for me, I'm fairly familiar with price development during the last years ;) > Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350. It's a high end 1060. Which in practice means almost nothing but that people will overpay for it, expecting better performance and quality than they'd get. The $400 price when last available is a pricing artifact of the end of cards lifetime. When they stop being available, some vendors will ask ridiculous prices to basically scam those that do not know they could get a newer better model instead, or are enterprise customers that have to buy the exact same model as the one to be replaced because of bureaucratic stupidity. Also, camelcamelcamel tracks Amazon prices. US Amazon is the most ridiculously overpriced hardware shop I've ever seen, with only occasional good offers in between. You can't take those prices of specific models serious. So yes, this 1060 might have had a "shortage" after it stopped being produced and even 1060s in general did have one at one point in time, but at the same time GTX 1650 Super, the GTX 1660, the GTX 1660 Super or especially a RX 480/580 had been readily available (after the crypto bubble of course).

danybittel 6y ago

Lots and lots of people built their first PC. Because being on lockdown and getting a stimulus check does that. Demand has gone up, shortage even on PSU. There's hardly any shipping through air, because that is usually done in cargo bay of passenger planes. (with 5x increase in air shipping prices), so most must happen through ship, and all ships are full. There is also Chinese new year, where fabrics are closed for a while. I do hope that this is a revival of the desktop PC!

ineedasername 6y ago
Yes, COVID has made this worse, but the trend extends back years. If you pick a random GTX 1060 card and look at its price trend (see my other replies in this thread for an example, I don't want to copy/paste spam) you'll see trends that, since sometime in 2017, were about 25% higher than MSRP and their lowest prices, often higher.

ksec 6y ago

>multiple years I think you are mixing up a few cycles into one. There hasn't been a GPU "shortage" for multiple years. But there are certainly shortages at different times in the past few years. Nvidia had to manipulate their Financial Numbers to cover up for excessive stock sitting in Channel due to Bitcoin crash. It took them 3 quarters ( and more ) to clear those inventory out. AMD had similar situation but their impact were much smaller due to less percentage using it for mining. This teach GPU vendor an important lesson. ( Edit: Imagine the worst case scenerio AMD has a new product launch and has ample of stocks while you have three quarter worth of old products not moving. ) Since then they are much more conservative with respect to forecast and planning. It is FAR better to have enough demand waiting for GPU than it is for GPU sitting in channel quite literally begging for their Distributors to sell them. This conservativeness has a knock-on effect on TSMC planning. At the start of pandemic everyone thought the economy could take a tank, which means forecast and estimation were even lower. But reality is all of a sudden PC sales and GPU sales are hitting new height due to more Stay at home and Gaming. Bitcoin is pushing into new height so casual miners are back. You are taking two conservative supply decision ( Previous over Supply and Pandemic ) and two Demand reality ( PC / Gaming and Bitcoin ). That is Four level of differences. Catching up takes time, and it doesn't help when the whole industry, not just GPU, but everything from WiFi, 5G Modem, SoC, CPU, Amazon Server GPU, NPU are all in demand. Both Intel and AMD grew 10% despite Intel having lower ASP ( i.e Higher Unit Sales ) and were selling as many as they could. The Silicon demand are far greater than even the most optimistic analysis has predicted.

ineedasername 6y ago
Not really, there may have been ebbs & flows in demand, but the trend for the last 3-4 years has been prices much higher than retail: If you want evidence check out this link. It shows the the lifetime prices of a GTX 1060 card since its release in 2016. It had an MSRP of $250, yet for most of it's life since sometime in 2017 it's been around $320 or higher, more than 125% of the MSRP, and, when this particular model was last available, over $400. Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350: https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01IEKYD5U

elorant 6y ago

You should thank Bitcoin for the spike in prices. Everyone and their dog are buying a GPU to crunch some coins. Even mid-range cards are 70% up from where they were a month ago. Fucking lunacy.

robotnikman 6y ago
I thought most people keen on mining bitcoin used ASIC's now, since the power cost of the GPU outweighs the profit of mining
- rcxdude 6y ago
  There's a bunch of coins (largest being etherium) using a proof of work mechanism which is optimised for GPUs and can't really be more efficiently implemented by an ASIC (rough reason being it's limited by memory bandwidth, not hashing speed, and GPUs are basically already super optimised for memory bandwidth). This was a deliberate choice by the designers of the cryptocurrency because ASICs centralise mining even further. Only real reason to mention bitcoin is that basically all cryptocurrencies go up and down in price with bitcoin, so when bitcoin goes up in price, other cryptocurrencies tend to do so as well, incentivising mining all of them.
- elorant 6y ago
  ASICs are not that easy to come by and they cost a lot. Newcomers to mining use whatever they can get their hands on.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Depends on the cost of the coin. BTC has been climbing.