What's to stop every new GPU release from being scalper-heaven including the Lovelace RTX 4000's series?

[Actual_Criminal]

The next generation of Nvidia graphics cards are rumoured to be releasing towards the last quarter of 2022. - Known as Lovelace Ada with expected double core counts of the RTX 3000 Ampere series and over 90 Teraflops of performance. (Of course, both the performance boost and release date is just a rumour at this stage and is not the purpose of this topic.) 

 

 

With the newer generation of GPU's, they are rumoured to use the smaller 5-nanometer nodes, which means higher quality wafers will be in even more of a demand due to the aim of trying to get the 'best materials' for the product. There is news of the recent story where Nvidia has dished out 'Billions of dollars' for these wafers from TSMC... 

 

We can blame the current GPU market on many things; Covid, technological advancement resulting in higher demand, issues with China, cryptocurrency etc. However, none of this interests me.

 

What does interest me, is if the above issues remain (which I suspect they will for at least this generation of upcoming architecture), what could Nvidia / suppliers realistically do to return things to normal for the gaming market?  

 

My two cents:

I believe that the new releases of generations from Nvidia could result in that WHOLE generation being classed as 'early-adopter tax' with sky-rocket prices above MSRP until the subsequent generation releases. Furthermore, this would continue for the older generations as well until some of the above issues have been resolved. If the above issues remain, then it could be 5+ years before older generation GPU's start depreciating like they used to. Is Nvidia graphics the new Rolex Hulk or Yeezy shoes? - Get lucky at release, or pay extra forever...

 

Sources: https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/news/nvidia-lovelace-rumored-specs-what-we-know-so-far-about-geforce-rtx-30-series-successor

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-spends-big-money-to-acquire-tsmcs-5nm-wafers-for-next-gen-geforce-rtx-40-ada-lovelace-gpus/

[da na]

Nothing, actually... 

Of course there is legislation proposed to prevent this, and there are methods like buyer confirmation kinda thing but that overall doesn't solve the problem, just inconveniently prevents it a little. 

[adarw]

make more gpus.

 

limit 1 gpu per person, (realistically they wont limit the gpus people can buy)

 

but reality says it wont be back to normal until more fabs are making more chips.

 

 

[Fasauceome]

People have shown to be extremely comfortable buying at scalped prices, apparently. The factor that drives market price more than anything else is how easily you can separate a customer from their money. 

 

If demand somehow falls off for 4000 series, prices would be expected to drop, but now that scalpers are aware of how hot these items are, it's gonna be a hotbed of reselling so I don't see that happening. Same deal with the play station 5.

[Actual_Criminal]

20 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Nothing, actually... 

Of course there is legislation proposed to prevent this, and there are methods like buyer confirmation kinda thing but that overall doesn't solve the problem, just inconveniently prevents it a little. 

Oh really? I think legislation is a great idea to be honest. That would be great if they could implement it right... Will be interesting to see how it is policed though.

[da na]

1 minute ago, Actual_Criminal said:

Oh really? I think legislation is a great idea to be honest. That would be great if they could implement it right... Will be interesting to see how it is policed though.

Yes, but if only a few countries pass it, then it won't be super effective in my opinion, unless selling of scalped goods is illegal everywhere.

[Actual_Criminal]

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

Yes, but if only a few countries pass it, then it won't be super effective in my opinion, unless selling of scalped goods is illegal everywhere.

Well I hope something is done soon... I think I briefly remember seeing something about this and the UK government 'willing to take a look at it', however it wasn't aimed specifically at GPU's but everything in general that is getting scalped.

 

It is getting soo bad that I have signed up to all these Discord / Telegram groups; when I click on a new listing within 10 seconds to buy X item, it has already been sold! Especially on Amazon... Something really needs to be done.

[Alvin853]

3 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

People have shown to be extremely comfortable buying at scalped prices, apparently. The factor that drives market price more than anything else is how easily you can separate a customer from their money. 

 

If demand somehow falls off for 4000 series, prices would be expected to drop, but now that scalpers are aware of how hot these items are, it's gonna be a hotbed of reselling so I don't see that happening. Same deal with the play station 5.

The big factor is going to be supply. If the scalpers can't afford to buy everything off the shelves, then regular people can just go to a store and buy products at MSRP, and scalpers have nothing to gain. Scalping is only profitable when enough people do it to remove any stock available at retail prices or the supply is so small to begin with that the product will sell out even without scalpers. I really hope NVidia is using the money they're making off this generation to secure more production capacity for future generations. 

[Actual_Criminal]

21 minutes ago, Alvin853 said:

The big factor is going to be supply. If the scalpers can't afford to buy everything off the shelves, then regular people can just go to a store and buy products at MSRP, and scalpers have nothing to gain. Scalping is only profitable when enough people do it to remove any stock available at retail prices or the supply is so small to begin with that the product will sell out even without scalpers. I really hope NVidia is using the money they're making off this generation to secure more production capacity for future generations. 

Well that's the problem, as transistors get smaller and they try to fit more in per wafer, they are much harder to make and there is more wastage. So the upcoming 5nm will be even worse...

[SteveGrabowski0]

The only thing that'll stop it is mining being unprofitable. Until then the demand will be the through the roof, enabling these ridiculous prices. 

[dilpickle]

This is the new normal. Better get used to it.

 

High end video cards were always hard to come by. And now the scalping community has entered the game just like they did with shoes and other goods. There is no reason to think they will stop.

[SteveGrabowski0]

24 minutes ago, Alvin853 said:

The big factor is going to be supply. If the scalpers can't afford to buy everything off the shelves, then regular people can just go to a store and buy products at MSRP, and scalpers have nothing to gain. Scalping is only profitable when enough people do it to remove any stock available at retail prices or the supply is so small to begin with that the product will sell out even without scalpers. I really hope NVidia is using the money they're making off this generation to secure more production capacity for future generations. 

Disagree, Nvidia and AMD are selling gpus hand over fist, and higher end models on top of that. Supply ain't the problem, as long as mining is going to be really profitable there will be demand to swallow any supply.

[SteveGrabowski0]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

People have shown to be extremely comfortable buying at scalped prices, apparently. The factor that drives market price more than anything else is how easily you can separate a customer from their money. 

 

If demand somehow falls off for 4000 series, prices would be expected to drop, but now that scalpers are aware of how hot these items are, it's gonna be a hotbed of reselling so I don't see that happening. Same deal with the play station 5.

Playstation 5 isn't all that hot to scalp. They're regularly selling for around $700 on ebay and after factoring in ebay + paypal fees you're likely making  $50 to $100 on the sale as a scalper. It was only for a few months after launch that these things were actually selling for $1000+. PS5 doesn't have anything approaching the demand that gpus do.

[Fasauceome]

44 minutes ago, Actual_Criminal said:

Well that's the problem, as transistors get smaller and they try to fit more in per wafer, they are much harder to make and there is more wastage. So the upcoming 5nm will be even worse...

The trend goes in the opposite direction in the manufacturing industry. Errors in chip production need to be resolved before the chips get ramped in manufacturing, so being harder to make doesn't mean the wafers will yield less products. Yield increases as process node shrinks.

 

Plenty of 3000 series cards got made, but demand exploded in an unprecedented way.

 

27 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

Playstation 5 isn't all that hot to scalp. They're regularly selling for around $700 on ebay and after factoring in ebay + paypal fees you're likely making  $50 to $100 on the sale as a scalper. It was only for a few months after launch that these things were actually selling for $1000+. PS5 doesn't have anything approaching the demand that gpus do.

The launch hype does factor in pretty strong for consoles as well, though I didn't know prices fell that much recently. If they don't swing back up, maybe I'll have to get my hands on one soon

[Paranoid Kami]

Make 1 per person, only sell GPU's when you have tons of them and instore only. If there's just a few then people with bots will show up in the store within minutes and gamers can't get any.

[SteveGrabowski0]

2 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

The trend goes in the opposite direction in the manufacturing industry. Errors in chip production need to be resolved before the chips get ramped in manufacturing, so being harder to make doesn't mean the wafers will yield less products. Yield increases as process node shrinks.

 

Plenty of 3000 series cards got made, but demand exploded in an unprecedented way.

 

The launch hype does factor in pretty strong for consoles as well, though I didn't know prices fell that much recently. If they don't swing back up, maybe I'll have to get my hands on one soon

They were actually really easy to get in the Walmart+ drop a couple of days before Thanksgiving. I think you could get in on it just buying a month of Walmart+ for like $13. My brother got a Series X in the Walmart+ drop and said it was completely painless, just refreshed the website at the opening of the sale, Walmart put him in like a four minute queue, and then gave him 20 minutes to complete the order while holding the Series X for him.

 

Series X and PS5 had actually been around that price on the used market a lot of last year before prices started creeping up again around late October to around $800 to $850 before dropping back to $700 or so the second week of December, as the scalper market was flooded with people who get them in that drop. The media is doing a really piss poor job reporting on $1000 to $1200 PS5 and Series X. Sure some people were asking for that, but not many were actually getting those prices if you go by the sold listings on ebay. Even at the height of PS5 mania I'd see them for $850 to $900 on OfferUp all the time.

[Montana One-Six]

Since the situation over the last year was a mix of many different things happening at the same time (pandemic, supply shortage, mining being profitable,...) no one knows how the situation will be in the coming years but it is hard to imagine that all these things will be happening again at the same time. But looking at the current world-situation who knows what will happen until then.

 

19 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

Of course there is legislation proposed to prevent this

16 hours ago, Paranoid Kami said:

Make 1 per person

Legislation is not the solution and people will find a way around these as always. Same goes for limiting the amount you can purchase which honestly is a stupid idea. The market will regulate itself once we get back to a somewhat normal market situation and unless that doesn't happen nothing will help with the prices.

 

Especially since so many showed over the last year what they are willing to pay for a few more FPS who knows what the MSRP will be once we get to the new gen cards.