why can't GPUs manufacturers keep up with the demand?

[imajerec]

why can't GPUs manufacturers keep up with the demand now that the mining acitivites have become less profitable?

 

everywhere GPUs are out of stock of ridiculously overpriced

people willing to buy rtx 3060 TI/3070 for 1000-1500EUR/$ doesn't help as well, this will make GPUs manufacturers think they can acutally get away with this and overprice theme even more

[Middcore]

What makes you think mining is less profitable? 

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, imajerec said:

GPUs manufacturers think they can acutally get away with this

What alternative do you have? SiS? Matrox?

 

They have a lock, they know it, are making money hand over fist, why change things?

[porina]

Production rate would have been planned long ago and if circumstances change, this is not something you can rapidly change at short notice. At least not without also significantly increasing costs.

[8tg]

Most of the silicon foundries are on minimal staffing due to covid.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Apparently Samsung is seeing low yields of GDDR6, which Nvidia requires and has no other supplier. AMD is in a similar situation with TSMC.

 

There's also a global pandemic going on, which has had the effect of both weakening supply due to restrictions in various countries, as well as causing a spike in demand as lots more people are staying at home with time on their hands and quite a few people have found themselves better off in the wake of the pandemic. Or, if your situation is the same and you're in the US, why not spend your stimulus payment on a GPU?

 

There's also the fact that this is the first real big leap in performance for a generation of GPUs in quite a while. The last time I remember a big jump in performance like this was the first Titan card (which seems cheap now). Quite a lot of people that have been holding off upgrading for a while have picked this generation to upgrade. 

[Stahlmann]

There have been several shortages on supplies. Not only GPUs from NVIDIA, but also VRAM shortages from Micron, etc. Also due to covid they are struggling to actually ship these things out of china and to the countries (of which several are under heavy lockdowns) where they're actually sold.

[Stahlmann]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Apparently Samsung is seeing low yields of GDDR6X, which Nvidia requires and has no other supplier.

Isn't the GDDR6X a Micron thing? Samsung is the GPU die supplier afaik.

[Oshino Shinobu]

3 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Isn't the GDDR6X a Micron thing? Samsung is the GPU die supplied afaik.

Woop, ignore the X

 

GDDR6X is indeed Micron, who is also the only supplier I believe, so not great with a high demand. Officials have said everything's fine, but rumours and common belief seems to be yields have been low. 

[germgoatz]

because nvidia stupid

[Applefreak]

14 minutes ago, imajerec said:

why can't GPUs manufacturers keep up with the demand now that the mining acitivites have become less profitable?

 

everywhere GPUs are out of stock of ridiculously overpriced

people willing to buy rtx 3060 TI/3070 for 1000-1500EUR/$ doesn't help as well, this will make GPUs manufacturers think they can acutally get away with this and overprice theme even more

At this point it is less an issue of production volume but of shipping the cards out. With steel prices going up, many shipping companies have started to scrap their vessels, causing even further shortages. If you are willing to buy a crate of 1000 cards and pay for airfreight and taxes up front, I am sure you can have your cards delivered within a week or two. But you won't be making a profit on anymore, at least not for MSRP.

[Middcore]

13 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

What alternative do you have? SiS? Matrox?

 

They have a lock, they know it, are making money hand over fist, why change things?

This is why I am rooting hard for Intel to be successful in the GPU arena. There have only been two alternatives as long as I've been in the hobby.

[Stahlmann]

17 minutes ago, Middcore said:

What makes you think mining is less profitable? 

I have no idea about mining myself but with all the hassle around bitcoin i'd guess it's likely more profitable now than it was for a long time.

[Stahlmann]

Just now, Middcore said:

This is why I am rooting hard for Intel to be successful in the GPU arena. There have only been two alternatives as long as I've been in the hobby.

I don't expect their first step into dGPUs to be highly competitive. But hey, i'm open to surprises!

[Middcore]

Just now, Stahlmann said:

I don't expect their first step into dGPUs to be highly competitive. But hey, i'm open to surprises!

They only need to come out with something competitive in the budget/entry-level space, that's the segment most ripe for disruption anyway (4 year old Polaris cards are still the best value there right now). Unfortunately I'm worried that because they're Intel and they're arrogant they're going to be determined to make a moonshot and take on Nvidia and AMD's flagships right away and completely flame out. 

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, Middcore said:

This is why I am rooting hard for Intel to be successful in the GPU arena. There have only been two alternatives as long as I've been in the hobby.

Matrox used to be an option a long long long time ago (back when RAM of GFX cards was in the sub 128MB range) but I agree with you, another GFX card maker (or two) can only help.

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

Matrox used to be an option a long long long time ago (back when RAM of GFX cards was in the sub 128MB range) but I agree with you, another GFX card maker (or two) can only help.

 

Oh yes I know there was a time when there were like 4-5 different GPU players, I can't imagine how exciting/confusing it must have been. 

[Radium_Angel]

7 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Oh yes I know there was a time when there were like 4-5 different GPU players, I can't imagine how exciting/confusing it must have been. 

Given very few games really took advantage of all the GFX cards had to offer, it's didn't make too much of a difference, but gaming did change the face of the GFX card market, with many players unable to compete (SiS, 3DFX, Matrox, etc) and left the market.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Middcore said:

Oh yes I know there was a time when there were like 4-5 different GPU players, I can't imagine how exciting/confusing it must have been. 

It was a long time ago but I did go through it. I'd break it up into several eras:

1, before 3DFX, there were several "3D" offerings that weren't widely supported so never got wide traction

2, 3DFX era, don't recall how or why, but it took off. My first "real" 3D card, just to play FF7 at 640x480, as software rendering mode only worked in 320x240.

3, nvidia vs ATI (now AMD) era - dunno how or why, 3DFX kinda faded out and we got our now familiar red vs green battle.

 

Edit: I feel really old now.

1996, 3DFX Voodoo, 500nm process

1999, nvidia TNT2 Ultra, 250nm (my first nvidia card)

How we moved on since then...

[Middcore]

2 minutes ago, porina said:

It was a long time ago but I did go through it. I'd break it up into several eras:

1, before 3DFX, there were several "3D" offerings that weren't widely supported so never got wide traction

2, 3DFX era, don't recall how or why, but it took off. My first "real" 3D card, just to play FF7 at 640x480, as software rendering mode only worked in 320x240.

3, nvidia vs ATI (now AMD) era - dunno how or why, 3DFX kinda faded out and we got our now familiar red vs green battle.

From what I understand what led to 3dfx's downfall was instead of just continuing to be an OEM like we're used to Nvidia and AMD being now, they purchased a GPU manufacturer called STB so they could start producing and selling cards themselves. But STB's production facilities turned out to be no good and by doing this 3dfx made enemies of all the card manufacturers they used to OEM for since they were now a direct competitor.