Throughout stores and online retailers across America, graphics cards, especially the recent generation of Nvidia RTX and AMD Radeon graphics cards are sold out. Obtaining these GPUs is nearly impossible without paying an exorbitant price or getting a lucky order in right as stock returns. Although many believe the problem of these shortages will ease as time goes on, a numerous amount of reports on Nvidia’s supply and yields suggests that these shortages could become even worse. So what is the cause of these shortages, and when will they end?
Cause of Shortages:
As the Coronavirus hit, demand for graphics cards increased as much of the population of the United States began working from home. Many people were looking to build productivity/gaming rigs as they were working from home and had much more free time for gaming. During that time, new demanding games were being released that would push previous generations of GPUs to their limits. As the GPU demand of gamers and those working from home increased, the cryptocurrency boom hit. Graphics cards came into high demand from miners as well. As demand for graphics cards rose, production runs for the various materials needed to produce these GPUs were delayed and shortened throughout early 2020. To fulfil the needs of those demanding higher performance GPUs as games became more demanding, Nvidia and AMD both launched their most recent generations of graphics cards. However, within hours of release, both brands had their entire stock of GPUs sold out, much of it going to scalpers who used bots to pick up as many GPUs as possible before selling them at marked up prices after launch. Launch after launch, products have been released with less and less stock available to the point where they have been called “paper launches.” Additionally, the failure of Samsung’s 8 nanometer process to yield an efficient amount of GPU dies led to Nvidia reaching out to TSMC to meet some of their chip demand. Therefore, while demand for Graphics Cards has increased, supply has decreased, leading to never seen before graphics card shortages.
When will they end?
Since Nvidia is looking to expand some of their GPU production to TSMC, the company that already fabricates AMD GPUs, it will depend on TSMC to alleviate most of the GPU shortages. Although Nvidia is attempting to limit mining capabilities on some of their Graphics Cards and launch some mining-specific products, it is unclear whether silicon for gaming-grade cards will be used in the mining cards (meaning that silicon meant for gamers would be put in the hands of miners). While the drought in Taiwan is causing some shortages because TSMC needs water to fabricate the GPU dies, they are launching a 100 billion dollar project to expand productive capabilities and prevent future shortages. Until then, the GPU shortage will likely depend on the drought going on in Taiwan, and TSMC’s ability to ramp up production there.
Sources:
The Overclock 