2020 has been a great year for hardware releases from AMD and Nvidia. The stunning launch of the Radeon RX 6000 series, Ryzen 5000, and Nvidia RTX 30 series were taken with big applaud. But before the successful launch of the products, both companies are struggling to push products, causing shortages in the markets.
AMD, NVIDIA hit with DDR6 shortages, and the constraints causing the prices to rise over MSRP
The current situation of the newer graphics card tends to worsen. Companies like AMD and Nvidia are hard focused on pushing products on the store shelves. The current constraints caused due to the COVID outbreak have caused a fair share of the hardware industry’s problem.
Currently, the GPU companies are getting a hard time creating more cards to meet the demands. Nvidia and AMD are rampantly trying to push their graphics card; as for Nvidia, they aren’t having much yield using the Samsung 8nm process node. AMD is doing great, but they rely on TSMC’s 7nm process node. TSMC makes products for tons of companies, and both the Ryzen 5000 and Radeon RX 6000 series utilize the 7nm node. The foundry can’t comply with the loads causing a delay in production.
The industry faces a shortage of DDR6 memory, which is a worse sign for gamers and enthusiasts. The latest graphics card from AMD and Nvidia use DDR6 for the GPU memory. The shortages of memory will indeed affect the GPU industry as a whole. The graphics card production will slow down significantly. Both the companies can’t meet the demand on the market, causing the prices to skyrocket.
The Radeon RX 6000 series and RTX 30 series’ prices have been increasing 20% – 80% from its MSRP. Smaller retailers have a hard time buying the cards due to the shortages. But for the System Integrators and big retailers get sold out minutes after putting the cards on shelves. Plus, the resell value on these cards increases a lot that scalpers are making a lot of money out of it. Stores have started to sell the cards with a bundled deal, but that still doesn’t stop scalpers.
The card’s resell value is around 40% – 60% above the MSRP selling on-site like eBay to clothing resell site StockX. Nvidia also admitted selling vast portions of the cards to cryptocurrency miners, which doesn’t bode well for the already depleting stocks.
Ryzen processors have gotten the worse end of the stick. The Ryzen 5000 series processors are out of stock and get cleared seconds after hitting the shelves. AMD can’t even provide the older Ryzen 3000 processors. All Ryzen 3000 processors face an uplift in prices, some even 100% of its MSRP. SI is forced to use Ryzen 3000 processors, but the older processors’ stock is depleting faster. Intel faced a stock problem in 2019 but is sailing smoothly as the production stabilized in early 2020.
The stocks on the graphics card look to stabilize in early 2021, hopefully before February. For now, every hardware product looks to face problems. The COVID vaccine will have the topmost priority causing a setback in shipping hardware products. Every gamer and DIY enthusiast needs to wait till next year as the prices stabilize and stocks start appearing on every market.
