What's the truthful reason(s) for the GPU shortage?

HAL_404

[H]ard|Gawd
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"As you probably already know if you're visiting this article, there's a huge worldwide shortage of graphic cards right now due to a myriad of supply and demand issues. "

What exactly are the "myriad of supply issues, who created them, Trump's tax on Chinese imports, etc. Anyone know what's really causing this? I am 63 years of age and never ever saw Corporations that failed to pump out a product like we're seeing with Nvidia and AMD, Samsung, and the rest of them
 
Covid started it by reducing worker capacity. Moving forward we had a storm of demand appear by new consoles dropping along with highly sought after gpus. There's a drought around TSMC's plant which reduces their capacity since they go through a hilarious amount of water. Miners and scalping have sprung up due to recent profitability for both of their trades specifically. Car sales have gone back up with travel restrictions starting to relax, which also need chips. Expanding or making new fabs take both enormous amounts of money and time, so there is no easy fix to increase capacity.

The tax on imports simply increased prices, it has no effect on supply. For example the founders edition cards have kept the same price, because they are not made in China, but everyone else has jacked up their prices. This will most likely take years to recover from, if it simply doesn't become the new normal. I unfortunately feel it will only continue to get worse, and we will be looking at $1,000 retail prices of 3060s by the end of the year, with everything else hilariously higher. No reason to believe it will ever get better so long as every card is sold on ebay even when it's 3x msrp. I've been fighting to get a card and a cpu since November with no luck myself.
 
some of us do not live here.

to arnemetis ... you gave a really good concise reply and then you gave Kardonxt an atta boy ... maybe make up your mind?
Why not both? :D Just appreciating the info on the other thread, I too don't live here so I didn't know it got locked. After, of course, trying to give you a quick reply.
 
I believe it’s majority crypto mining related.

Pent up demand by gamers doesn’t go far enough to explain the current demand nor the ridiculous prices the cards sell for on the seconday markets. You think gads of gamers are lining up to buy their one card at 3x MSRP on eBay by the thousands every day? No. Gamers won’t spend $2K on a 3080, but crypto miners will, and they’ll buy them all for months and months on end to this point.

Nvidia says it’s not a supply issue, they say it’s a demand issue. They have officially said they have sold more cards than both Turing (20 series) and Pascal (10 series) to the same point in time on the market from their respective launch, and their financial statements indicate that truth.

Thus the shortage is primarily crypto mining related. Where your consumer isn’t just buying one card and walking away from the marketplace for two years, but is buying as many as they possibly can, because the cards have basically been a license to print money for four months now. All the other reasons are ancillary. I’d buy three dozen 3080 or 3060TI right now if I could find them around MSRP, (not to flip, to mine with) and you can bet 10% of the people on this forum would do the same. Without crypto profitability, I’d only buy one card and be out of the market.

3080s have had about a two-three month (worstcase) ROI at MSRP since Jan 2021. Same for 3060ti. General crypto conservative guidance is buy anything that ROIs in six months or less. All Ampere 30 series does that twice as fast. 3090 is the least valuable to miners and even it has ROI’ed in 4-5 months during this time.

If crypto profitability dries up, a deluge of cards will become available within a couple months...Until it does, there will be no cards except those well above that approximate six month ROI target. (Which is what eBay prices reflect).
 
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I would also assume it's cpyto miners who also have vast solar arrays or otherwise "free" electricity. It still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, because as of 5 years ago ASICs made GPUs obselete for mining. That is, unless something changed recently, I don't really keep current on the subject of crypto coins and the associated speculation. It doesn't interest me one bit. I just want to play my games without hearing the loud WHOOOSH of my pair of 980ti blower cards churning in stereo.
 
My impressiion, since I have no real first hand knowledge, is that there is a combination of factors all driving up the demand for GPUs. AMD is supply-constrained overall yet they are supplying the GPUs for two new gaming consoles. People who are locked down have been upgrading their rigs. And of course there is the crypto-mining insanity. And TSMC can't increase overall production. Did I leave anything out?
 
All I do know for a fact is after 8 tries I won the newegg shuffle.

And tonight happened to be the first night in months I was working late and did not have time to check my phone. Guess who won tonight, and then didn't get the notifications? My cart was cleared by the time I saw the emails on my phone.

F M L
 
The miners want the cards to mine, then sell off used after ROI.
The best thing you can do is wait and only buy new cards then let the miners eat the cards they expect to sell.
If you buy used cards, you are supporting miners.
 
The miners want the cards to mine, then sell off used after ROI.
The best thing you can do is wait and only buy new cards then let the miners eat the cards they expect to sell.
If you buy used cards, you are supporting miners.
This isn't a problem.
 
You can literally print money with gpus, that is the only factor that matters. Until it's no longer viable nothing will change and no one can predict when that will be.
 
Lol at people thinking this is a long term trend. Soon; pandemic eases up even more with summer, people will not be stuck inside wanting video cards. Prices on eBay havent budged in 3+ weeks now. Miners already will have access to great options for mining cards too.

Also, I pity someone that would buy a used card that was mined with; or even a used 3xxx card in general without warranties. It is woefully inadequately cooled (GDDR6X) and wildly overdrawing power (>320w) and won't last as long as earlier gens, because frankly, hardware isn't magic.

Vacation/flight/hotels seems like the next hot commodity, atm.
 
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All I do know for a fact is after 8 tries I won the newegg shuffle.

And tonight happened to be the first night in months I was working late and did not have time to check my phone. Guess who won tonight, and then didn't get the notifications? My cart was cleared by the time I saw the emails on my phone.

F M L

That sucks, was it the 6700XT? I want an NVidia so I didn't enter that one.
 
Lol at people thinking this is a long term trend. Soon; pandemic eases up even more with summer, people will not be stuck inside wanting video cards. Prices on eBay havent budged in 3+ weeks now. Miners already will have access to great options for mining cards too.

Also, I pity someone that would buy a used card that was mined with; or even a used 3xxx card in general without warranties. It is woefully inadequately cooled (GDDR6X) and wildly overdrawing power (>320w) and won't last as long as earlier gens, because frankly, hardware isn't magic.

Vacation/flight/hotels seems like the next hot commodity, atm.

It depends on crypto prices, if they keep going up, cards will remain hard to find.
 
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same reason shortages existed for the 2000 series only worse because more people and companies are jumping on the train all the time. Crypto.
 
That sucks, was it the 6700XT? I want an NVidia so I didn't enter that one.
Yah it was a 6700XT. I would've liked to get the sapphire since it was the lowest cost option. 15 minutes too late when I saw the notification. Guess it wasn't meant to be.

People keep blaming mining for the issue right now. This was coming up right when the 3080 launched which was before we had pressure on stock from miner demand. I'm sure it isn't helping but to put anywhere near the entire blame on them reeks of bullcrap to me.
 
Maybe it's time for some emergency product segmentation by NVidia and AMD. They just need to create gimped versions of their new cards that work perfectly in games, but will automatically downclock to 135MHz when they detect mining code. Lower the MSRP by 25% for the gimped cards, and raise the price by 50% for the mining-enabled cards. Problem solved.
 
Maybe it's time for some emergency product segmentation by NVidia and AMD. They just need to create gimped versions of their new cards that work perfectly in games, but will automatically downclock to 135MHz when they detect mining code. Lower the MSRP by 25% for the gimped cards, and raise the price by 50% for the mining-enabled cards. Problem solved.
Lol core clocks have no effect on mining profitability, it's all ram bandwidth. My 3060 mobile laptop is producing 38 mh/s at 500 mhz core speed and a 75W power draw. Was late to the mining scene and sold many of my cards way too cheap but beliefs of the converts and all that....
 
Mining isn't the sole cause, but its one of the causes.

As listed above;

Pandemic; the DIY/home pc market has jumped up significantly. The world population believe it or not is mostly stuck at home. (US is 335 million out of 7 billion so just the US alone can eat up all the GPU production should 50% of its workforce stay at home)
Drought; water is a huge deal in manufacturing
Chip production is limited to a few key areas in the world, thus limited manufacturing capacity
Release of new consoles with new GPU (this hurts AMD the most)
Miners may not be majority responsible, but hey when you add these to the mix.

For work, I have ordered 24 3090s and the ETA is about 4-6 weeks for fulfillment to me. Researchers, government, machine learning, ai etc are getting dibs on a lot of cards at above premium but below scalper pricing. See GPU technology conference to get an idea of how many gpu's aren't going into gamer hands and that of companies.
 
People need to remember the increase in pricing is a direct correlation to increasing inflation, which may be getting far worse in the next few years given how much money the US government is borrowing from the fed. This amount of debt, and lack of production is historic. Any type of commodity/physical good is going up in price fast.
 
People need to remember the increase in pricing is a direct correlation to increasing inflation, which may be getting far worse in the next few years given how much money the US government is borrowing from the fed. This amount of debt, and lack of production is historic. Any type of commodity/physical good is going up in price fast.
that would be true if the cost increase was localized instead of world wide.

its much more linked to the cost the market is willing to pay for the product, which has been directly impacted by the fact that the product can now generate revenue directly.
 
People need to remember the increase in pricing is a direct correlation to increasing inflation, which may be getting far worse in the next few years given how much money the US government is borrowing from the fed. This amount of debt, and lack of production is historic. Any type of commodity/physical good is going up in price fast.
Sooo inflation is 300% in six months? Sobody please tell the Federal Reserve Bank!

funny my grocery bill hasn’t changed in six months.

Inflation should be a consequence of all this money printing, but GPU prices at 2-3x MSRP is not caused by inflation.
 
I still can't get a damn 3090 and am doing my AI work on an old Titan X.

I might just skip this whole generation and preorder the next one before demand gets way too hot. My training loops are still running reasonably fast..
 
The reason for the GPU shortage is a lack of prefabulated amulite coupled with the fiduciary hypercoagulation effect. As a result, the unilateral phase detractor, which is an essential component in the sinusoidal depleneration transistors (on the silicon wafer itself), is not able to achieve the electro-optical resonance required by the annular grillage connections.

I could go into this in greater detail, but that's basically the jist of it.
 
Mining isn't the sole cause, but its one of the causes.

As listed above;

Pandemic; the DIY/home pc market has jumped up significantly. The world population believe it or not is mostly stuck at home. (US is 335 million out of 7 billion so just the US alone can eat up all the GPU production should 50% of its workforce stay at home)
Drought; water is a huge deal in manufacturing
Chip production is limited to a few key areas in the world, thus limited manufacturing capacity
Release of new consoles with new GPU (this hurts AMD the most)
Miners may not be majority responsible, but hey when you add these to the mix.

For work, I have ordered 24 3090s and the ETA is about 4-6 weeks for fulfillment to me. Researchers, government, machine learning, ai etc are getting dibs on a lot of cards at above premium but below scalper pricing. See GPU technology conference to get an idea of how many gpu's aren't going into gamer hands and that of companies.
This. And those are only a few of the contributing factors. There are a hundred reasons. Lots of the signals for "why" are out there, but get drowned out in the daily clickbait fishfeed. Global compute demand was already up before crypto surged again, GPU's are the new CPU's, Samsung is having yield problems, there are more markets than ever - both new and emerging - that are in need of and therefore competing for these number crunchers. For as center-of-the-universe that gamers believe we are to GPU's for videogames, that market is being dwarfed by industrial applications.
 
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All I do know for a fact is after 8 tries I won the newegg shuffle.

And tonight happened to be the first night in months I was working late and did not have time to check my phone. Guess who won tonight, and then didn't get the notifications? My cart was cleared by the time I saw the emails on my phone.

F M L

I don’t think I’ll ever win. I wonder if people who have a recent purchase history have a better chance at winning.

I did get a Radeon 6700XT today at Microcenter, but it was for my brother. I want an nVidia 3080 or above. I can possibly trade a 5950x and some cash for a card. :D
 
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Mining isn't the sole cause, but its one of the causes.

As listed above;

[ ... ]

For work, I have ordered 24 3090s and the ETA is about 4-6 weeks for fulfillment to me. Researchers, government, machine learning, ai etc are getting dibs on a lot of cards at above premium but below scalper pricing. See GPU technology conference to get an idea of how many gpu's aren't going into gamer hands and that of companies.
What kind of business? And how does a business or a government get preferential ordering privileges?

Stupid idea: What if all of us here set up some kind of "club" (or whatever) and did a group buy?
 
What kind of business? And how does a business or a government get preferential ordering privileges?

Stupid idea: What if all of us here set up some kind of "club" (or whatever) and did a group buy?
We can't order enough. I work in that space; we're talking millions of dollars worth per order to get any kind of treatment there - and yeah, I've fulfilled orders for 30XX for AI work. When you order 1200 of the things, people take notice. Outside of that? Yawn.
 
I would also assume it's cpyto miners who also have vast solar arrays or otherwise "free" electricity. It still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, because as of 5 years ago ASICs made GPUs obselete for mining. That is, unless something changed recently, I don't really keep current on the subject of crypto coins and the associated speculation. It doesn't interest me one bit. I just want to play my games without hearing the loud WHOOOSH of my pair of 980ti blower cards churning in stereo.

ASICs made GPUs obsolete for mining bitcoin specifically, which is far from the only form of crypto currency.
 
We can't order enough. I work in that space; we're talking millions of dollars worth per order to get any kind of treatment there - and yeah, I've fulfilled orders for 30XX for AI work. When you order 1200 of the things, people take notice. Outside of that? Yawn.
Thanks. I'm going to guess that at very very, very most, there are 300 people in this group who ** might ** be interested in a group order. Maybe only half that number. So even if the average price per card ordered is $1000, our group order would not come close to what you are talking about.

Maybe there are some miners who place these large orders. :whistle:
 
Thanks. I'm going to guess that at very very, very most, there are 300 people in this group who ** might ** be interested in a group order. Maybe only half that number. So even if the average price per card ordered is $1000, our group order would not come close to what you are talking about.

Maybe there are some miners who place these large orders. :whistle:
And all the AI/ML work is happening on 3090 level cards or the GRID equivalent. So we’d be at 1800-8k per card, depending (haven’t done many of the GRID ones yet).
 
The workstation cards cost upwards of 4K to 8K, 3090s can do the same work for a fraction of the cost. I also purchase DGX based systems and servers, I'm actually in process of ordering a 3rd DGX server. The companies and governments I work with can't get enough of these cards, collectively my group alone purchased a few million worth of GPU in the past year.

So going to be honest; its not the miners eating up all the cards as I and my colleagues are getting them in a delay window of about 1.5 months per order.
 
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