Trade War with China Will Drive Up GPU Prices Again

Status
Not open for further replies.
Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Could NVIDIA’s RTX cards get even more expensive? That is certainly a possibility: ExtremeTech notes that a variety of PC components, including graphics cards, motherboards, storage devices (e.g., SSDs), and power supplies, will all be hit with a 10-percent tariff starting September 24. “If you could buy a new RTX2080 AIB today for $800 you should, and think of it as being discount from what it will cost in January—$1,000. On Monday, the 24th of September, it will cost $880, plus tax and shipping.”

The increase in prices will be recognized by some smart, and wealthy people as an opportunity. They will buy as many of the new AIBs today as they can get and hold them. Then when the price goes up, they can sell them on eBay for only 15% more than today’s price, make a nice profit, legally, and make the slow-moving or slow-witted people who didn’t buy now, happy to get the apparent gray-market discount. None of that will help the GPU or AIB suppliers, who are already nervous about the last generation of AIBs bought for mining being dumped on eBay and killing new sales.
 
Megalith said:
Could NVIDIA’s RTX cards get even more expensive? That is certainly a possibility: ExtremeTech notes that a variety of PC components, including graphics cards, motherboards, storage devices (e.g., SSDs), and power supplies, will all be hit with a 10-percent tariff starting September 24. “If you could buy a new RTX2080 AIB today for $800 you should, and think of it as being discount from what it will cost in January—$1,000. On Monday, the 24th of September, it will cost $880, plus tax and shipping.”

The increase in prices will be recognized by some smart, and wealthy people as an opportunity. They will buy as many of the new AIBs today as they can get and hold them. Then when the price goes up, they can sell them on eBay for only 15% more than today’s price, make a nice profit, legally, and make the slow-moving or slow-witted people who didn’t buy now, happy to get the apparent gray-market discount. None of that will help the GPU or AIB suppliers, who are already nervous about the last generation of AIBs bought for mining being dumped on eBay and killing new sales.
Click to expand...

How is this any different from any GPU launch? If it's not tight supply at launch driving up prices of late it's the crypto guys gobbling up supply. Paid well over retail for my used 1080ti's.

As noted above, they need our $$$ more than we need their goods production... it's a "war" they cannot win. If they jack the price of goods 25% manufacturers will start building goods stateside again.
 
I need a job. Somebody put up the billions it would cost to fab the gpus and memory in the US and hire me. Then you can find new reasons to inflate prices e.g., we don't have enough sand on our beaches or the president farted near the fab.
 
Removed quoted rule violation-Paul_Johnson

Thats essentially what I meant.. China aint the only player in the game.. go ahead and price yourself outta competitiveness.. see what happens. Right?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
LigTasm said:
I doubt this will last long. We can live without cheap Chinese products, China can't currently live without our food exports. They'll cave.
Click to expand...

China imports about 20% of their total food imports from the USA, they produce 60-80% of their food domestically. The US is responsible for 4-8% of the value of China's domestic consumption food market. Don't overestimate your importance. China is also a food exporter.

The USA is a big exporter of agricultural product, the main importers being Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and China. The USA is currently in trade wars with every single one of those countries.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
China imports about 20% of their total food imports from the USA, they produce 60-80% of their food domestically. The US is responsible for 4-8% of the value of China's domestic consumption food market. Don't overestimate your importance. China is also a food exporter.

The USA is a big exporter of agricultural product, the main importers being Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and China. The USA is currently in trade wars with every single one of those countries.
Click to expand...


Oh yeah, I forgot its only fair when you can put tariffs on the US and not the other way around. Silly me.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
China imports about 20% of their total food imports from the USA, they produce 60-80% of their food domestically. The US is responsible for 4-8% of the value of China's domestic consumption food market. Don't overestimate your importance. China is also a food exporter.

The USA is a big exporter of agricultural product, the main importers being Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and China. The USA is currently in trade wars with every single one of those countries.
Click to expand...

Nope, Mexico saw the light and they are getting a deal. The others will come to heel soon enough.
 
Derangel said:
Keep dreaming.
Click to expand...

You're right. We shouldn't even try to correct the BS. Just keep our heads in the sand (or up our collective asses, Depending on party affiliation) and let it go. Reeeeeee!
 
Tariffs are going to increase prices, but I don't get the increases they're quoting
1000 is 25% more than 800, not 10%
Does anyone know how tariffs are calculated? I assumed it was based on the price of the components in said product or in this case, perhaps, the wholesale price of the card. In either case, I'd expect the increase to be less than 80.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
I'm not sure how, because of the topic, but keep the politics out of this thread. If this goes that way this thread is done.
Click to expand...

Yep.

We have a place for that.

DF893029-BBB3-41EF-AD15-FB48A0C2E7B5.jpeg
 
Evil Scooter said:
How is this any different from any GPU launch? If it's not tight supply at launch driving up prices of late it's the crypto guys gobbling up supply. Paid well over retail for my used 1080ti's.

As noted above, they need our $$$ more than we need their goods production... it's a "war" they cannot win. If they jack the price of goods 25% manufacturers will start building goods stateside again.
Click to expand...

Please step away from the crack pipe...….. and stop drinking the Cool-Aid.
 
Montu said:
Nope, Mexico saw the light and they are getting a deal. The others will come to heel soon enough.
Click to expand...
The changes with MX are not huge (though it seems likely that car prices will increase and perhaps some auto parts).
It remains to be seen if Canada joins in, and we could get hurt badly there, since we have a trade surplus and they are the largest consumer of our products.

No idea on China, but my guess is they're willing to play this out and watch prices rise in the U.S. and see how consumers react, which means this will probably go on well into 2019, if not 2020.
Xi Jinping was just reelected, has been consolidating power (arguably he has more than anyone since Mao), so he's not going anywhere. Nobody in the U.S. has that much power.

Maybe you're right. Wall Street certainly seems unfazed, but I don't see China backing down. For now it's "Fuck you Xi." "Fuck me? Oh No Don, fuck you." Thus the tit-for-tat tariffs.
 
Governments including the US rarely take away tariffs. Don’t expect this “trade war” to end any time soon.
 
Frankly, with tariffs finally going into place to even out trade, all it would take to drive prices down is for someone to see an opportunity and start manufacturing memory chips and GPU chips on American soil.

The reason I say that is because over in Asia, the competition in China and Samsung would likely kill any competitor overnight, but making it in America under the protection of tariffs, a real competitor could get a foothold, and suddenly Samsung wouldn't have its monopoly on memory anymore, and if there were GPU plants in America using this other brand of memory, the cost of manufacturing would go down allowing companies to save money and charge less move their product.

This is how it always used to be with any product before the whole concept of global trade took over, which really only involved shuttling money and jobs from richer countries to poor countries, and allowing big Global businesses to pay workers Sweatshop money to turn out their luxury products.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Frankly, with tariffs finally going into place to even out trade, all it would take to drive prices down is for someone to see an opportunity and start manufacturing memory chips and GPU chips on American soil.

The reason I say that is because over in Asia, the competition in China and Samsung would likely kill any competitor overnight, but making it in America under the protection of tariffs, a real competitor could get a foothold, and suddenly Samsung wouldn't have its monopoly on memory anymore, and if there were GPU plants in America using this other brand of memory, the cost of manufacturing would go down allowing companies to save money and charge less move their product.

This is how it always used to be with any product before the whole concept of global trade took over, which really only involved shuttling money and jobs from richer countries to poor countries, and allowing big Global businesses to pay workers Sweatshop money to turn out their luxury products.
Click to expand...

They'd need to find a way around the myriad of patents held by all those companies. Plus, they would still need to import materials needed to actually manufacture the chips. Then there is the labor cost involved, you aren't getting people to work for the same wages that China, Taiwan, and so on pay. Chips would likely still cost a lot more than they will under the tariffs.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Frankly, with tariffs finally going into place to even out trade, all it would take to drive prices down is for someone to see an opportunity and start manufacturing memory chips and GPU chips on American soil.

The reason I say that is because over in Asia, the competition in China and Samsung would likely kill any competitor overnight, but making it in America under the protection of tariffs, a real competitor could get a foothold, and suddenly Samsung wouldn't have its monopoly on memory anymore, and if there were GPU plants in America using this other brand of memory, the cost of manufacturing would go down allowing companies to save money and charge less move their product.

This is how it always used to be with any product before the whole concept of global trade took over, which really only involved shuttling money and jobs from richer countries to poor countries, and allowing big Global businesses to pay workers Sweatshop money to turn out their luxury products.
Click to expand...

LOL..yeh, like American companies have not run crazy pricing levels time and time again, what sounds great in theory when it hits the "street" becomes something else entirely, example, anything "military" or "medical" price is WAY blown to the moon, should cost say $100, instead costs 1000, or 10,000 etc.

Also, I live in Canada, so, made in America means "automatic" will cost more when it hits our shores, should not be this way, but it is, and continues to be this way for a very very long time now..stupid border taxes / brokerage/ tariffs and anything else they can throw in there to "jump" the price. simple nuts and bolts is no problem, it is everything else o_O

---------------------------
------

I do not care if them big greedy companies make massive $, I do care for the simple things that make no sense at all, like inflation, a glass of water from today is the same glass of water as it was a decade ago, or even 200 years ago, but now, it no longer costs the same because of "inflation" what a stupid thing that is.

and "fair pricing" IMO if it costs $1 to make and have on the shelf, why in the bloody hell is anyone "allowed" to charge as much as they want based on "supply and demand" is bonkers. The more the "big" companies and such continue to do what they do, the poorer and poorer and less and less we all have in the short and long term...its terrible.

tariffs will not kill the world, greed and waste sure will though
 
dragonstongue said:
LOL..yeh, like American companies have not run crazy pricing levels time and time again, what sounds great in theory when it hits the "street" becomes something else entirely, example, anything "military" or "medical" price is WAY blown to the moon, should cost say $100, instead costs 1000, or 10,000 etc.

Also, I live in Canada, so, made in America means "automatic" will cost more when it hits our shores, should not be this way, but it is, and continues to be this way for a very very long time now..stupid border taxes / brokerage/ tariffs and anything else they can throw in there to "jump" the price. simple nuts and bolts is no problem, it is everything else o_O

---------------------------
------

I do not care if them big greedy companies make massive $, I do care for the simple things that make no sense at all, like inflation, a glass of water from today is the same glass of water as it was a decade ago, or even 200 years ago, but now, it no longer costs the same because of "inflation" what a stupid thing that is.

and "fair pricing" IMO if it costs $1 to make and have on the shelf, why in the bloody hell is anyone "allowed" to charge as much as they want based on "supply and demand" is bonkers. The more the "big" companies and such continue to do what they do, the poorer and poorer and less and less we all have in the short and long term...its terrible.

tariffs will not kill the world, greed and waste sure will though
Click to expand...

You seem to not believe in economics. Fortunately, economics believes in you!
 
I think the solution here to rising costs is socialism! Everyone gets a free GPU and a loaf of bread!
 
less reliance on China is great news for China's neighbors,, which China has soundly pissed off (esp Vietnam, when the Chinese moved their oil rig with a military escort into Vietnamese waters) by their military maneuvers in the Spartly Islands and South China Sea
 
Montu said:
China will give in soon enough. They can't win a protracted trade war.
Click to expand...
Im not so sure.. US is the biggest trading partner, yes but at less than 20% .. it feels to me that they could sanction us altogether, which would completely destroy our economy.. that 20% could be diluted with other trading partners. As they seem to have room to grow ( i assume the 40% other is a bunch of small trading partners)
http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Country=CN
 
The problem with tariffs today is that like it or not economies are global today and tariffs amount to a guy pissing on a forest fire. Sure there a plenty of issues with trading with China. It's a communist dictatorship for one. Then there's that whole globalization thing. Isn't BMW's biggest plant in Spartanburg SC?
 
heatlesssun said:
The problem with tariffs today is that like it or not economies are global today and tariffs amount to a guy pissing on a forest fire. Sure there a plenty of issues with trading with China. It's a communist dictatorship for one. Then there's that whole globalization thing. Isn't BMW's biggest plant in Spartanburg SC?
Click to expand...

The real issue is specialization and that not every industry is treated equally among trade partners, and this has been woven into have tariffs are calculated. Industry A might see a lot of tariffs, but in exchange Industry B is reversed. The US may have a "bad deal" when it comes to steel, but we have an advantage in another area. The idea that tariffs have to be equal across every industry doesn't make sense. Specialization is the key to the post WWI economy. Mercantilism died years ago because it didn't work.

Obviously the PRC is different because they outright violate copyright law, are unfair when it comes to tariffs. But for other countries it mostly makes sense.
 
Flogger23m said:
The real issue is specialization and that not every industry is treated equally among trade partners, and this has been woven into have tariffs are calculated. Industry A might see a lot of tariffs, but in exchange Industry B is reversed. The US may have a "bad deal" when it comes to steel, but we have an advantage in another area.
Click to expand...

And this goes to my point. With large and developed economies just how effective can targeted tariffs be? A lot of US industry depends on Chinese imports. A lot of production of foreign companies is domestic. I think Wall Street has largely been unaffected by these tariffs to date is because Wall Street knows it fucking hardly matters. In any case it'll be consumers that determine how far this goes. If too many day to day items start getting to expensive, good luck to the people behind nonsense that amounted to nothing anyway beside higher prices.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top