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This is maybe a dumb question, but why is it so hard to buy Nvidia GPUs? I can understand lack of supply, but why can't I go on nvidia.com and buy something th
by ks2048 2y ago
This is maybe a dumb question, but why is it so hard to buy Nvidia GPUs?
I can understand lack of supply, but why can't I go on nvidia.com and buy something the same way I go on apple.com and buy hardware?
I'm looking for GPUs and navigating all these different resellers with wildly different prices and confusing names (on top of the already confusing set of available cards).
- datadrivenangel 2y agoNvidia uses resellers as distributors. Helps build out a locked in ecosystem.
- ks2048 2y agoHow does that help "build out a locked in ecosystem"? Again, comparing to Apple: they have a very locked-in ecosystem.
- MoreMoore 2y agoI don't think lock-in is the reason. The reason is more that companies like Asus and MSI have a global presence and their products are available on store shelves everywhere. NVIDIA avoids having to deal with building up all the required relationships and distribution, they also save on things like technical support staff and dealing with warranty claims directly with customers across the globe. The handful of people who get an FE card aside.
- santoshalper 2y agoNvidia probably could sell cards directly now, given the strength of their reputation (and the reality backing it up) for graphics, crypto, and AI. However, they grew up as a company that sold through manufacturing and channel partners and that's pretty deeply engrained in their culture. Apple is unusually obsessed with integration, most companies are more like Nvidia.
- pragmar 2y agoApple locks users in with software/services. nVidia locks in add-in board manufacturers with exclusive arrangements and partner programs that tie access to chips to contracts that prioritize nVidia. It happens upstream of the consumer. It's always a matter of degree with this stuff as to where it becomes anti-trust, but in this case it's overt enough for governments to take notice.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- doix 2y agoNvidia (and AMD) make the "core", but they don't make a "full" graphics card. Or at least they don't mass produce them, I think Nvidia tried it with their "founders edition". It's just not their main business model, it's been that way for many many years at this point. I'm guessing business people have decided that it's not worth it. Saying that they are "resellers" isn't technically accurate. The 5080 you buy from ASUS will be different than the one you buy from MSI.
- SirMaster 2y agoThey still make reference founders editions. They sell them at Best Buy though, not directly.
- infecto 2y agoReference cards make up the vast minority of cards for a specific generation though. I looked for numbers and could not find them but they tend to be the Goldilocks of cards if you can grab one because they sell at msrp IIRC.
- devmor 2y agoYep, I scored a 3070 Founder's at launch and was very lucky, watching other people pay up to the MSRP of the 3090 to get one from elsewhere.
- sigmoid10 2y agoNvidia also doesn't make the "core" (i.e. the actual chip). TSMC and Samsung make those. Nvidia designs the chip and (usually) creates a reference PCB to show how to make an actual working GPU using that chip you got from e.g. TSMC. Sometimes (especially in more recent years) they also sell that design as "founders" edition. But they don't sell most of their hardware directly to average consumers. Of course they also provide drivers to interface with their chips and tons of libraries for parallel computing that makes the most of their design. Most people don't realize that Nvidia is much more of a software company than a hardware company. CUDA in particular is like 90% of the reason why they are where they are while AMD and Intel struggle to keep up.
- CivBase 2y agoI've always assumed their add-in board (AIB) partners (like MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc) are able to produce PCBs and other components at higher volumes and lower costs than NVIDIA.
- xnyan 2y agoNot just the production of the finished boards, but also marketing, distribution to vendors and support/RMA for defective products. There is profit in this, but it’s also a whole set of skills that doesn’t really make sense for Nvidia.
- zitterbewegung 2y agoThis is supply and demand at work. NVIDIA has to choose to either sell consumer or high end and they can reserve so much resources from TSMC. Also, Apple has outsold hardware before or it has high demand when it releases but for NVIDIA they have nearly constant purchases throughout the year from enterprise and also during consumer product launches.
- ggregoire 2y agoI read your question and thought to myself "why is it so hard to buy a Steamdeck"? Available only in like 10 countries. Seems like the opposite problem, Valve doesn't use resellers but they can't handle international manufacturing/shipping themselves? At least I can get a Nvidia GPU anytime I want from Amazon, BestBuy or whatever.
- throwaway314155 2y ago> At least I can get a Nvidia GPU anytime I want from Amazon, BestBuy or whatever. You can? Thought this thread was about how they're sold out everywhere.
- TrackerFF 2y agoGPUs are in demand. So scalpers want to make a buck on that. All there is to it. Whenever demand surpasses supply, someone will try to make money off that difference. Unfortunately for consumers, that means scalpers use bots to clean out retail stores, and then flip them to consumers.
- WXLCKNO 2y agoWithout thinking about it too deeply I'm wondering if GPU demand is that much higher than let's say iPhone demand. I don't think I've ever heard of iPhones being scarce and rare and out of stock.
- pas 2y agoApple very tightly controls their whole value chain. It's their whole thing. Nvidia "dgaf" they are raking in more cash than ever and they are busy trying to figure out what's at the end of the semi-rainbow. (Apparently it's a B2C AI box gimmick.)
- chis 2y agoOne way to look at is that the third party GPU packagers have a different set of expertise. They generally build motherboards, GPU holder boards, RAM, and often monitors and mice as well. All of these product PCBs are cheaply made and don't depend on the performance of the latest TSMC node the way the GPU chips do, more about ticking feature boxes at the lowest cost. So nvidia wouldn't have the connections or skillset to do budget manufacturing of low-cost holder boards the way ASUS or EVGA does. Plus with so many competitors angling to use the same nvidia GPU chips, nvidia collects all the margin regardless.
- brigade 2y agoYet the FE versions end up cheaper than third party cards (at least by MSRP), and with fewer issues caused by the third parties cheaping out on engineering…
- blackoil 2y agoMaybe, it is simply a legacy business model. Nvidia wasn't always a behemoth. In olden days they must be happy for someone else to manage the global distribution, marketing, service etc. Also, this gives an illusion of choice. You get graphic cards in different color, shape, RGB, water cooling combinations.
- diob 2y agoIt is frustrating speaking as someone who grew up poor and couldn't afford anything, and now I finally can and nothing is ever in stock. Such a funny twist of events, but also makes me sad.
- brokenmachine 2y agoImagine how sad you'd be if you were still poor.
- michaelt 2y agoOK so there are a handful of effects at work at the same time. 1. Many people knew the new series of nvidia cards was about to be announced, and nobody wanted to get stuck with a big stock of previous-generation cards. So most reputable retailers are just sold out. 2. With lots of places sold out, some scalpers have realised they can charge big markups. Places like Amazon and Ebay don't mind if marketplace sellers charge $3000 for a $1500-list-price GPU. 3. For various reasons, although nvidia makes and sells some "founder edition" the vast majority of cards are made by other companies. Sometimes they'll do 'added value' things like adding RGB LEDs and factory overclocking, leading to a 10% price spread for cards with the same chip. 4. nvidia's product lineup is just very confusing. Several product lines (consumer, workstation, data centre) times several product generations (Turing, Ampere, Ada Lovelace) times several vram/performance mixes (24GB, 16GB, 12GB, 8GB) plus variants (Super, Ti) times desktop and laptop versions. That's a lot of different models! nvidia also don't particularly want it to be easy for you to compare performance across product classes or generations. Workstation and server cards don't even have a list price, you can only get them by buying a workstation or server from an approved vendor. Also nvidia don't tend to update their marketing material when products are surpassed, so if you look up their flagship from three generations ago it'll still say it offers unsurpassed performance for the most demanding, cutting-edge applications.
- ryao 2y agoThe workstation cards have MSRPs. The RTX 6000 Ada’s MSRP is $6799: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/rtx-6000-ada-generation.c3933 https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/rtx-6000-ada-generatio...
- the__alchemist 2y agoIt depends on the timing. I lucked out about a year ago on the 4080; I happened to be shopping in what turned out to be the ~1 month long window where you could just go to the nvidia site, and order one.
- pseudosavant 2y agoIf you think it is bad for Nvidia, give AMD a try. Go ahead and try to guess which GPU is the most powerful by model number. They give so many old parts new model numbers, or have old flagship parts they don't upgrade in the next generation that are still more powerful.