For PC enthusiasts, we know it’s a bad time to build a gaming rig. Although putting together a PC yourself can save you hundreds of dollars, the cost of components continues to rise, making it nearly impossible to put together a machine at a budget price. The main reason for this is the current GPU shortages.
PC components’ rising prices are nothing new. GPU prices fluctuate with demand, and RAM prices fluctuate like a roller coaster, and those two components can account for a significant portion of your total build cost. But this time is different. For more than a year, a perfect storm of limited supply, high demand, and market expansion would prevent buyers from finding a graphics card. And, while things are improving, the problem is far from solved.
this is not the first scarcity
Looking back, this is not the first time GPU become short. The difference today isn’t the shortage, but the fact that various factors have extended and worsened it.
In 2017, there was a similar shortage of Nvidia’s GTX 10 series and AMD’s RX 500 series graphics cards on the market. The shortage was caused by increased demand as a result of rising Ethereum prices, which is a Bitcoin alternative that is still contributing to the shortage today.
GPU shortages will always be unavoidable, given the previous launches. The difference this time was that the PC gaming market was exploding, and a pandemic was about to keep people inside for over a year.
It’s the pandemic and the scalpers…?
Despite the fact that the cryptocurrency market has become much weaker in recent months, graphics cards remain a hot commodity among gamers and crypto miners. The lack of supply of capable GPUs drives up prices, and many people will likely blame greedy scalpers for this unfortunate situation, which has forced countless gamers to postpone planned hardware upgrades.
However, even the most seasoned scalpers appear to be unable to locate a GPU. According to Tom’s Hardware, there were only eight scalpers on eBay offering the newly released Radeon RX 6500 XT, which has since increased by just one listing. This shows the incredibly limited availability of AMD’s newest but far from the greatest graphics card, which has received mostly negative feedback due to its poor performance. In some benchmarks, it can barely match five-year-old GPUs like the RX 480, according to some reviews.
The World Health Organization (WHO) designated the coronavirus as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. On March 19, California became the first state to enact a mandatory stay-at-home order, and by May 31, stay-at-home orders had been enacted in 73 percent of U.S. counties.
The demand for computers increased as people left the office. The PC market grew by 13.1 percent in 2020, the highest rate of growth since 2010 when it increased by 13.7 percent.
References
- The Catastrophic GPU Shortage: A Chronological History | Digital Trends
- GPU shortage: Not even scalpers can find the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT – NotebookCheck.net News
- Inside the GPU Shortage: Why You Still Can’t Buy a Graphics Card | PCMag
- Nvidia CFO Expects GPU Shortages to Improve in the Second Half of 2022 – IGN