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Where are the Video Cards?

Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
My friend is building a system for his girlfriend. He can't find a video card that's any good anywhere. Why doesn't Nvidia and AMD ramp up manufacturing of these cards? Demand is there. Hello?
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Comments

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    Sal1Sovrath
  • Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,404
    edited April 2021
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
    When the bubble bursts what will they do with all that investment? Plus they need other companies' to make their parts too so every one of those other companies have to invest in making new plants. Big commitment on something that can collapse at any time.
    Garrus Signature
  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,933
    edited April 2021
    omg! I was about to make the same post. I turned on my computer this morning to see vertical stripes down my screen. After some testing I decided it wasn't the monitor but the video card.

    Ok, no problem I'll just buy a new one.

    I can't find a decent-priced card anywhere unless I want to pay over $600 US. I was hoping for a GeForce RTX 3060TI ~$400.

    But I can't find a thing anywhere.

    How are people buying their cards?

    edit: also I'm replacing a ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 so if anyone has any thoughts on something comparable or better please let me know.



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  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
    It takes years to build new factories.  For example, Hynix just got approved to build new fabs in a particular area:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/16595/sk-hynix-to-build-106-billion-fab-cluster-800000-wafer-starts-a-month

    They're going to spend more than $100 billion on the new complex, and they expect the first fab to be ready in 2025.  That's an investment of over $100 billion by a company that you may have never even heard of.  Some other companies are investing even more than that over a comparable time scale in building new fabs.
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
    Sovrath said:
    omg! I was about to make the same post. I turned on my computer this morning to see vertical stripes down my screen. After some testing I decided it wasn't the monitor but the video card.

    Ok, no problem I'll just buy a new one.

    I can't find a decent-priced card anywhere unless I want to pay over $600 US. I was hoping for a GeForce RTX 3060TI ~$400.

    But I can't find a thing anywhere.

    How are people buying their cards?
    I think most gamers are just really hoping that their current video card keeps working.  If mine were to die, I'd salvage the old Fury X from my previous desktop and put it in the new one.
    cheyane[Deleted User]Asm0deus
  • Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
    Sovrath said:
    omg! I was about to make the same post. I turned on my computer this morning to see vertical stripes down my screen. After some testing I decided it wasn't the monitor but the video card.

    Ok, no problem I'll just buy a new one.

    I can't find a decent-priced card anywhere unless I want to pay over $600 US. I was hoping for a GeForce RTX 3060TI ~$400.

    But I can't find a thing anywhere.

    How are people buying their cards?


    I am afraid to say you are F'd right now. There aren't any video cards anywhere.
    Sovrath[Deleted User]
  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,933
    Sal1 said:
    Sovrath said:
    omg! I was about to make the same post. I turned on my computer this morning to see vertical stripes down my screen. After some testing I decided it wasn't the monitor but the video card.

    Ok, no problem I'll just buy a new one.

    I can't find a decent-priced card anywhere unless I want to pay over $600 US. I was hoping for a GeForce RTX 3060TI ~$400.

    But I can't find a thing anywhere.

    How are people buying their cards?


    I am afraid to say you are F'd right now. There aren't any video cards anywhere.
     :'(

    I have an old GTX 260 I was going to use for a test computer. I guess I'll just use that.

    'cause that's good right? RIGHT!?!?!?!?  :/
     
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    Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo 
  • RungarRungar Member RarePosts: 1,132
    edited April 2021
    More likely the pandemic has sent demand for computer hardware through the roof though i imagine the "miners" are making it much worse.

    How many will lose their shirt I wonder with crypto currencies, the trojan horse to prepare you for digital only currency. 

    once its function is complete it will go back to what it was (nothing). Driven by greed many will be milked along the way. 
    .05 of a second to midnight
  • CuddleheartCuddleheart Member UncommonPosts: 391
    After the 3000 series was announced, I felt bad about buying a 2070 super for retail when things were in short supply last spring.  I still wish I had waited to snag one of those $700 2080 TIs that were popping up on Ebay after the 3000 series announcement, but getting a triple-fan OC 2070 super at $500 still seems like a big win in retrospect.

  • Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
    Quizzical said:
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
    It takes years to build new factories.  For example, Hynix just got approved to build new fabs in a particular area:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/16595/sk-hynix-to-build-106-billion-fab-cluster-800000-wafer-starts-a-month

    They're going to spend more than $100 billion on the new complex, and they expect the first fab to be ready in 2025.  That's an investment of over $100 billion by a company that you may have never even heard of.  Some other companies are investing even more than that over a comparable time scale in building new fabs.
    Geez. I didn't know it was so expensive to make a chip factory. A local company (Twin Cities, Minnesota) just made a huge investment to ramp up production. But they had DOD help because they make chips for the USA military.
  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 32,933
    Quizzical said:
    Sovrath said:
    omg! I was about to make the same post. I turned on my computer this morning to see vertical stripes down my screen. After some testing I decided it wasn't the monitor but the video card.

    Ok, no problem I'll just buy a new one.

    I can't find a decent-priced card anywhere unless I want to pay over $600 US. I was hoping for a GeForce RTX 3060TI ~$400.

    But I can't find a thing anywhere.

    How are people buying their cards?
    I think most gamers are just really hoping that their current video card keeps working.  If mine were to die, I'd salvage the old Fury X from my previous desktop and put it in the new one.
    I can't seem to find the "I agree AND I'm screwed" button.
    Sal1
    Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb." 

    Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w


    Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547

    Try the "Special Edition." 'Cause it's "Special." https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64878/?tab=description

    Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo 
  • LobotomistLobotomist Member EpicPosts: 5,981
    Good morning.
    For some time now we are even seeing 10 year old cards being priced x3 the value. And newer cards, they are like made out of diamonds.

    And that is if you can even find any,


    I literally did not see the situation in 20 years, where you go in PC hardware shop, and they have no cards on stock.

    And good news is that its not expected to change until 2023




  • Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
    I looked it up and the Twin Cities chip maker is Skywater Technology. But again they make hardened chips for the military and what nought. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/48612/skywater-fab-expansion-dod-investment.html

    Quizzical
  • VrikaVrika Member LegendaryPosts: 7,989
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
    It takes years to build new factories.  For example, Hynix just got approved to build new fabs in a particular area:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/16595/sk-hynix-to-build-106-billion-fab-cluster-800000-wafer-starts-a-month

    They're going to spend more than $100 billion on the new complex, and they expect the first fab to be ready in 2025.  That's an investment of over $100 billion by a company that you may have never even heard of.  Some other companies are investing even more than that over a comparable time scale in building new fabs.
    Geez. I didn't know it was so expensive to make a chip factory. A local company (Twin Cities, Minnesota) just made a huge investment to ramp up production. But they had DOD help because they make chips for the USA military.
    At the moment the problem with increasing production is not really the costs, it's the time to build new factories.

    The problem is that factory is a huge complex with a lot of special requirements. The companies can't repurpose any existing empty buildings as factories (they could but they'd have to basically tear it down and rebuild it). So whenever they want to increase production they're stuck with having to find a suitable place, plan it, get permits, then build the building, and no matter how much money they have it takes years from decision to build a new factory before you can actually produce anything in it.

    First pandemic increased demand of electronics a lot. Then crypto craze increased it even further. As result the world has run out of factory space for certain electronics, and no matter what we do or how much money we throw into the problem, it takes years from decision to build a new factory before you can actually have one producing stuff.
     
  • Asm0deusAsm0deus Member EpicPosts: 4,618
    edited April 2021
    Heh got my 5800x around Xmas but couldn't get a gpu...sadly my gtrx760 died so I had to take the gtx 760 out of my wife's PC, she isn't gaming right now anyways, and put that in with my 5800x and pull out one fo the two xfx 5770 amd card I had in my closet....

    How effing sad is that or get screwed buying a grossly overpriced old/new card....
    Sovrath[Deleted User]

    Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.





  • Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
    My friend in my original post offered cash money to my girlfriend for her card. Which PC system I gave her. An old Nvidia 745 I believe. lol

    She has a newer card which she hasn't installed yet. An XFX Radeon RX 570 RS XXX Edition which is just gold right now in this current market. Even though it's a middle of the road card. lol
  • TwistedSister77TwistedSister77 Member EpicPosts: 1,144
    edited April 2021
    cheyane said:
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
    When the bubble bursts what will they do with all that investment? Plus they need other companies' to make their parts too so every one of those other companies have to invest in making new plants. Big commitment on something that can collapse at any time.
    This happened to NVDIA a few years back when the mining bubble burst (but it's back now - good times... pop the champagne).  Cratered their stock.

    But like others said, building fabs is a multi-year multi-billion dollar investment.  There is no quick way to do it.
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
    Sal1 said:
    I looked it up and the Twin Cities chip maker is Skywater Technology. But again they make hardened chips for the military and what nought. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/48612/skywater-fab-expansion-dod-investment.html

    Interesting.  I hadn't heard of them.  90 nm is not a remotely modern node for most purposes.  For comparison, both Intel and AMD launched new CPUs on a 90 nm process node way back in 2004.

    Apparently Skywater does radiation-hardened chips, which is a very specialty market that isn't relevant to most consumer chips.  As such, they'll be massively slower than leading edge technology.

    Of course, that's assuming that the standard consumer or server parts from Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and so forth actually work.  In a radiation-heavy environment such as space, they won't, or at least not for very long.  Hence the need for a specialty process node that can build chips specifically designed to work in such environments.
  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Sal1 said:
    Quizzical said:
    Because the miners are buying them all, as cryptocurrency prices are stupidly high.  The market value of Ethereum alone is several times the combined revenue of Nvidia and AMD last year.  No matter how many cards they build, the miners will still buy them all.

    Nvidia is building as many GPUs as they can as fast as they can, from any foundries that hey can get capacity on.  AMD is almost doing that, but focusing more on CPUs, since that's a more lucrative market for them.  But all recent process nodes at all significant foundries are at full capacity, have been for months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Nvidia and AMD would love to be able to produce more chips faster, but TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, and Intel don't have any excess capacity available on any remotely recent process nodes.
    But again my question is why not make more chips? Build more factories. Demand is there so you build more factories. Is it to expensive to do this if demand drops off?
    It takes years to build new factories.  For example, Hynix just got approved to build new fabs in a particular area:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/16595/sk-hynix-to-build-106-billion-fab-cluster-800000-wafer-starts-a-month

    They're going to spend more than $100 billion on the new complex, and they expect the first fab to be ready in 2025.  That's an investment of over $100 billion by a company that you may have never even heard of.  Some other companies are investing even more than that over a comparable time scale in building new fabs.
    Geez. I didn't know it was so expensive to make a chip factory. A local company (Twin Cities, Minnesota) just made a huge investment to ramp up production. But they had DOD help because they make chips for the USA military.
    To be fair, my link is actually about Hynix building a cluster of four fabs.  So they're only around $20-$30 billion each.  Every new process node gets more expensive.

    Those fabs are going to build a significant fraction of the world's DRAM and NAND several years from now.  Hynix is one of the world's three major DRAM manufacturers, and one of the four major NAND manufacturers.
  • TillerTiller Member LegendaryPosts: 11,485
    edited April 2021
    There are literal bots buying them up, there is actually live streams on youtube of card availability...bots snatching them up faster than crap. I ran into this same issue two years ago. At this point it's safe to say the bubble will never pop.






    Asm0deus
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    Elder Jedi/Elder Bounty Hunter
     
  • Sal1Sal1 Member UncommonPosts: 430
    Quizzical said:
    Sal1 said:
    I looked it up and the Twin Cities chip maker is Skywater Technology. But again they make hardened chips for the military and what nought. https://www.design-reuse.com/news/48612/skywater-fab-expansion-dod-investment.html

    Interesting.  I hadn't heard of them.  90 nm is not a remotely modern node for most purposes.  For comparison, both Intel and AMD launched new CPUs on a 90 nm process node way back in 2004.

    Apparently Skywater does radiation-hardened chips, which is a very specialty market that isn't relevant to most consumer chips.  As such, they'll be massively slower than leading edge technology.

    Of course, that's assuming that the standard consumer or server parts from Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and so forth actually work.  In a radiation-heavy environment such as space, they won't, or at least not for very long.  Hence the need for a specialty process node that can build chips specifically designed to work in such environments.
    But after a nuclear explosion these chips will still work. (Theoretically) 

  • GroqstrongGroqstrong Member RarePosts: 826
    edited April 2021
    Its really alarming for the gaming community, i checked our local store and everything but the bottom of the barrell cards are available.  The industry really needs to start developing cards for mining and cards for gaming seperately.

    3070's are selling for $1500+ second hand and it was supposed to be a $600 option.



  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
    Its really alarming for the gaming community, i checked our local store and everything but the bottom of the barrell cards are available.  The industry really needs to start developing cards for mining and cards for gaming seperately.

    3070's are selling for $1500+ second hand and it was supposed to be a $600 option.
    The problem is that, even with cards just for mining, the miners will buy all of those and then also all of the gaming cards.

    Nvidia is selling some mining-specific cards, but as best as I can tell, they're just bins that have some part defective so that they can't be sold as a gaming card, but work fine for mining.  For example, if the video decode block doesn't work, that's useless as a consumer part, but miners won't care.

    On net, that's a good thing, as it gets more cards to market, even if some of them are eaten up by miners.  But with Nvidia only able to get so much capacity at Samsung, you don't want for them to use some of that limited capacity for chips designed specifically for mining that can't be used for gaming.
  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    Its really alarming for the gaming community, i checked our local store and everything but the bottom of the barrell cards are available.  The industry really needs to start developing cards for mining and cards for gaming seperately.

    3070's are selling for $1500+ second hand and it was supposed to be a $600 option.



    They do make cards exactly for mining AND they are cheaper.So i was wrong in assuming that means the gaming consumer cards would not be afected but as Quizz pointed out the miners will simply buy he gaming cards as well if THEIR cheaper mining cards are not available.

    IDK how to remedy the problem,i guess the problem would have to do with online purchasing.The problem is a real problem because if cards become rare to purchase the price will go up.

    I can't even really complain about Crypto because our dollar as it is nothing more than a scam a way to control the people while making bank owners wealthier than they already are.

    So i can't even think of ANY way to fix this problem aside from limiting who buys online,at least it forces miners to go to stores then we can enforce a one purchase limit.So then they simply come back and buy again so there needs to be layers of protection to actually ever fix this problem.

    Then the problem of Crypto,even if every single person had some minute intelligence it won't go away because it is a rich person's game to play,something to invest in and watch the snowball effect similar to a pyramid scheme.Still Crypto is only as good as it can be used for and imo no matter how high it is valued at the real value is MUCH less,i guess no different than our current dollar.


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