AMD graphics card availability is abysmal

[robotsalad]

None of the graphics cards in this year's line-up would sell as much as the RX 480 and RX 470 if AMD could keep them available.  Those are the cards that the highest percentage of users require.  They would have made so much more money off of this product line than probably any other product line they've ever released.  How is somebody at AMD not replaced every hour?  It's difficult for me to imagine a scenario where AMD are doing their job right at this point.  I'm not a market analyst but I don't think a person has to be to know that people can't purchase something that's not there.  Apparently their factories are fabricating like 10 graphics cards a month now?  A 750 TI SLI is almost practical at this point.  Somebody make this make sense please.

[DrM]

amd underestimated the demand. according to gibbo from ocuk, the reference editions sold a little too well, so thousands of dies that would have gone to aibs went to making more reference cards, leading to those shortages. they cannot just magically increase production in one day, since the entire process from siicon to wafer takes about 3 months

[STRMfrmXMN]

4 minutes ago, DrM said:

amd underestimated the demand. according to gibbo from ocuk, the reference editions sold a little too well, so thousands of dies that would have gone to aibs went to making more reference cards, leading to those shortages. they cannot just magically increase production in one day, since the entire process from siicon to wafer takes about 3 months

Why is Nvidia stuff never in stock then? I can understand AMD with the huge upbringing of 480 and 470 sales but what did Nvidia do that screwed this up so fucking bad?

[robotsalad]

All of their primary retailers have been out of stock since day one with occasional and brief availability.  So so they produce a batch of silicon and totally halt production until three months later when those reach market and produce more?  No it's a continuous process which is why availability should not be this bad.  New egg should be able to receive enough stock that the only 480 in stock isn't as much as a 1070.

[DrM]

1 minute ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Why is Nvidia stuff never in stock then? I can understand AMD with the huge upbringing of 480 and 470 sales but what did Nvidia do that screwed this up so fucking bad?

not really sure about that. it might be that nvidia paper launched their products to early to be the first to market at the expense of lower supply.

[Curufinwe_wins]

4 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Why is Nvidia stuff never in stock then? I can understand AMD with the huge upbringing of 480 and 470 sales but what did Nvidia do that screwed this up so fucking bad?

I can get my hands on 1060s-1080s at a slight premium (well "slight" is relative), but I still can't get a 480 without paying 1070 level costs.

 

Look at all that stock:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=1070&N=-1&isNodeId=1 <-1070

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=1080&N=-1&isNodeId=1 <-1080

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=1060&N=-1&isNodeId=1 <-1060

 

And the 480...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=480+amd&N=-1&isNodeId=1

[robotsalad]

5 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Why is Nvidia stuff never in stock then? I can understand AMD with the huge upbringing of 480 and 470 sales but what did Nvidia do that screwed this up so fucking bad?

Really? I don't think any of it is understandable.  There's not enough money to be made on selling graphics cards for these companies to be wasting time like this.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, robotsalad said:

Really? I don't think any of it is understandable.  There's not enough money to be made on selling graphics cards for these companies to be wasting time like this.

Honestly, this is probably everything to do with TSMC and GloFo over-hyping their mass production of 14nm chips. It wasn't for nothing Intel delayed theirs.

[Deli]

1 hour ago, robotsalad said:

Really? I don't think any of it is understandable.  There's not enough money to be made on selling graphics cards for these companies to be wasting time like this.

AMD doesn't have a manufacturing plant. It relies on the chip supplier(Globalfoundries?) for the GPU. It isn't like you press a button and suddenly a miilion Polaris 10 chips will pop out of thin air.

 

Nvidia has supply issue back in June and July as well. Only recently 1070 and 1080 have better availability.

[robotsalad]

1 minute ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Honestly, this is probably everything to do with TSMC and GloFo over-hyping their mass production of 14nm chips. It wasn't for nothing Intel delayed theirs.

Yeah well again I doubt it's a production issue because they are probably capable of producing enough chips to keep pace with demand.  I think AMD just didn't request enough silicon with their irresponsible underestimate of the demand of these cards.

[Deli]

1 hour ago, robotsalad said:

Yeah well again I doubt it's a production issue because they are probably capable of producing enough chips to keep pace with demand.  I think AMD just didn't request enough silicon with their irresponsible underestimate of the demand of these cards.

You have proof to support your claim?

[Curufinwe_wins]

6 minutes ago, robotsalad said:

Yeah well again I doubt it's a production issue because they are probably capable of producing enough chips to keep pace with demand.  I think AMD just didn't request enough silicon with their irresponsible underestimate of the demand of these cards.

Except that both Nvidia and AMD are running super short on chips, and trust me, AMD would love nothing more than to get even more chips out there, it cannot be anything other than a supplier issue on the chip fab side.

[Deli]

1 hour ago, rrubberr said:

GlobalFoundaries was AMD. Volume is not the issue.

I don't think AMD is the only customer of GloFo now.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, rrubberr said:

GlobalFoundaries was AMD. Volume is not the issue.

As if AMD actually wants their product to be constantly unavailable... 14nm node isn't easy, as Intel so thoroughly proved. GloFlo probably isn't up to snuff atm with demand.

[robotsalad]

2 minutes ago, Deli said:

You have proof to support your claim?

my claim that they didn't request enough silicon?  The cards being out of stock.  The claim that its not chip production?  " The combined capacity of the three facilities exceeded six million 12-inch wafers in 2015. Production within these three facilities supports 0.13µm, 90nm, 65nm, 40nm, 28nm, 20nm, and 16nm process technologies, including each technology’s sub-nodes" - TSMC manufacturing report

[Deli]

1 hour ago, robotsalad said:

my claim that they didn't request enough silicon?  The cards being out of stock.  The claim that its not chip production?  " The combined capacity of the three facilities exceeded six million 12-inch wafers in 2015. Production within these three facilities supports 0.13µm, 90nm, 65nm, 40nm, 28nm, 20nm, and 16nm process technologies, including each technology’s sub-nodes" - TSMC manufacturing report

I think Polaris chips are manufactured by GloFo, not TSMC.

 

Also both TSMC and GloFo have many customers. They don't just make GPUs for Nvidia and AMD.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, rrubberr said:

Global Boundaries has a 14nm fab.

And that doesn't mean it can keep up with demand... how is that not obvious?

[malon]

i had to wait a month before i could buy an rx480 after they were released where i live, and then another 2 weeks before there was a brand that gave 36months of warranty on the darn thing( i never buy parts with less than 36months warranty)

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just now, rrubberr said:

They can dump 130k+ wafers per month out of there. I doubt they've sold that many RX 480's.

And of that randomly stated 130k wafers (which fails to include all the OTHER lines still running), how many are for SoC's (Zen/Snapdragon 820 and etc/Apple A9/Exnos 7420/etc) and how many are for Polaris? Of that Polaris segment, how many are for Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 individually? Of those that are just for Polaris 10, how high are the yields? We have seen info as low as 15%... Ignoring that, what capacity factor does GloFlo operate at?

 

They can't keep up with demand on a silicon level. End of story. All other components are always easily available. There literally isn't any other way for them to not have supply (AMD wants more on the market obviously. They don't want people in the US going, "the 480 hasn't been available for 4 months, I guess I'll have to buy a 1060...")

[robotsalad]

 

2 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

And that doesn't mean it can keep up with demand... how is that not obvious?

So for best case scenario for AMD they aren't able to get enough chips out of the manufacturers of the silicon.  Even though there are only a few semiconductors that require these small process nodes so I can't imagine them having less than 30 percent of the available production.  They can produce over ten thousand wafers per day.  Even if only 30% are available for polaris production, US retailers should be receiving hundreds of stock per day.

[Curufinwe_wins]

7 minutes ago, robotsalad said:

So for best case scenario for AMD they aren't able to get enough chips out of the manufacturers of the silicon.  Even though there are only a few semiconductors that require these small process nodes so I can't imagine them having less than 30 percent of the available production.  They can produce over ten thousand wafers per day.  Even if only 30% are available for polaris production, US retailers should be receiving hundreds of stock per day.

Except divide out polaris 11 chips, divide out chips for the 470, divide out yields of the chips themselves...

 

Oh and 14nm phone SOC's are a way larger market then Polaris GPUs are... Like 10-100x more market.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just now, rrubberr said:

If you honestly think 15% is anywhere near the figure, you're absolutely clueless. I would agree that AMD is too bankrupt to keep up with demand, but I wouldn't agree on yields.

AMD doesn't need capital to keep up with chips that literally fly of the shelfs the instant they come in. Plus they have plenty to keep up anyways.... Their market capitalization has quadrupled in the past year.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, rrubberr said:

Yeah, absolutely flying off the shelves to satisfy their less than 30% of the discrete GPU market.

With literally one product in active production. Yea.

[robotsalad]

1 minute ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Except divide out polaris 11 chips, divide out chips for the 470, divide out yields of the chips themselves...

 

Oh and 14nm phone SOC's are a way larger market then Polaris GPUs are... Like 10-100x more market.

Don't Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung make their own chips (and Apple's)?  And GloFo are still advertising "immediate availability."  I'm sure they have a lot of customers but AMD should be higher priority for them.

[Deli]

2 hours ago, rrubberr said:

Yeah, absolutely flying off the shelves to satisfy their less than 30% of the discrete GPU market.

Only Fab 8 in the Malta, New York facility of GloFo can manufacture 14nm chips.

 

Do you have the actual data of their production capacity? No "I imagine...." this kind of speculation please.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, robotsalad said:

Don't Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung make their own chips (and Apple's)?  And GloFo are still advertising "immediate availability."  I'm sure they have a lot of customers but AMD should be higher priority for them.

Qualcomm designs their chips(same for Apple), but manufactured by other foundries.

 

Everyone wants their hands on the 14/16nm node now. The demand is huge.