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When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

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Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#11

Post by Jaygles »

monkeydust wrote: post #2

If (like me) your on a long waiting list to get a new Nvidia GPU or AMD processor this piece sheds some light on the issue from a supplier perspective.

Over the past three weeks I've had 7 store pages on auto refresh trying to catch a 5950x in stock. I've finally got one on order but it's a pre-order and its earliest ETA is Jan 12th. I guess this gives me time to try and order the GPU I want.

It isn't just CPUs and GPUs though. The cooler I want won't be in stock until July per the manufacturer. I had to get lucky to get the PSU I wanted. People are employing crazy techniques to get each piece of their machine, not just the critical components.

Scalpers are magnifying the issue. The scalping problem will be solved eventually when supply catches up, but the longer that takes, the more stock the scalpers will obtain, thus prolonging the time window scalping will be profitable.

I didn't know what I signed up for last month when I decided to do a build but I sure as hell wasn't expecting this. I only need the GPU now so at least the end is in sight.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#12

Post by vmchale »

kzrdude wrote: post #8

I'd like to hear more from companies, not consumers, that can't get the computers they want. How do they manage? More reuse? I traded up my computer at work, but it turns out they had to give my old one to a new employee due to shortages.

I don't know if this counts but I want an ARM laptop performant like the M1 but with Linux (not from Apple?)

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#13

Post by ljoshua »

monkeydust wrote: post #6
est31 wrote: post #3

Really interesting: > With the exception of the current RTX 3000 (Samsung), all market launches of the year 2020 rely on the 7-nm chips from TSMC. ARM-SoC manufacturers such as Qualcomm also use 7 nm and have only recently moved capacity from Samsung to TSMC. TSMC is currently pretty much alone in the market with this technology and the production lines are therefore working at full capacity. A sudden increase in pro…

The ABF thing is fascinating actually. The company behind it Ajinomoto has for the last century since its existence built a business in food products: seasoning, oils, beverages, dairy products and chemicals. ABF came about through internal innovation. There's a really good (perhaps unintentionally funny) video of it here: https://players.brightcove.net/6050660078001/default_default...

Ha, this is the best thing I've watched in a while. :)

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#14

Post by jrockway »

Jaygles wrote: post #11
monkeydust wrote: post #2

If (like me) your on a long waiting list to get a new Nvidia GPU or AMD processor this piece sheds some light on the issue from a supplier perspective.

Over the past three weeks I've had 7 store pages on auto refresh trying to catch a 5950x in stock. I've finally got one on order but it's a pre-order and its earliest ETA is Jan 12th. I guess this gives me time to try and order the GPU I want. It isn't just CPUs and GPUs though. The cooler I want won't be in stock until July per the manufacturer. I had to get lucky to get the PSU I wanted. People are employing crazy…

I built a new machine back in August and the PSU was the hardest part. I tend to only buy Seasonic power supplies, but there just weren't any in stock anywhere. I ended up finding an Asus power supply on B&H and it served me well, but I really hate deviating from my approved vendor list. (So far it has treated me well. It's a 1200W unit and I can pull 1000W from it without any problems at all. The same cannot be said of other non-Seasonic units I've had over the years. I was plagued with flakiness with a Corsair 1000W unit many years ago. I wasted so much time debugging that problem; finally connecting an oscilloscope to the 12V rail and noticing that the 12V rail fell to 10V when running AVX instructions. That explains why the computer just hard powered off when I hit an AVX workload :)

ECC memory was also in a bad state then, so I suffer with non-ECC memory. So far, that is also treating me well. Can't worry about bit flips you don't know about! (taps forehead)

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#15

Post by wyldfire »

vmchale wrote: post #12
kzrdude wrote: post #8

I'd like to hear more from companies, not consumers, that can't get the computers they want. How do they manage? More reuse? I traded up my computer at work, but it turns out they had to give my old one to a new employee due to shortages.

I don't know if this counts but I want an ARM laptop performant like the M1 but with Linux (not from Apple?)

There's a few vendors shipping Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx / SQ2 laptops. Surface Pro X, Lenovo Flex 5G, Acer Spin 7, etc.

They definitely won't be head-to-head with M1, but they're probably your best bet for a high-performance ARM linux laptop.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#17

Post by segfaultbuserr »

vmchale wrote: post #12
kzrdude wrote: post #8

I'd like to hear more from companies, not consumers, that can't get the computers they want. How do they manage? More reuse? I traded up my computer at work, but it turns out they had to give my old one to a new employee due to shortages.

I don't know if this counts but I want an ARM laptop performant like the M1 but with Linux (not from Apple?)

I started wondering as soon as Apple M1 was announced. Under a comment about porting Linux to Apple Silicon [0], citing the lack of official support and documentation, my closing remark was

> Unless the circumstances change and indicate otherwise, I think the Apple Silicon [Linux] port will be a serious waste of community time, talents, and resources. It's better to spend time on a platform where vendor support and documentation exists... However, the conclusion assumes that a serious competitor of Apple Silicon will eventually emerge and more supportive to the community, but it won't necessarily happen. I'm somewhat afraid that biting the bullet and reverse engineering the Apple Silicon could be the only way to have a high-performance Linux desktop on ARM - I hope not.

Will there ever be a serious and more community friendly competitor to Apple Silicon in the next five years? And if so, who is it going to be?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25250600

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#18

Post by rav »

monkeydust wrote: post #6
est31 wrote: post #3

Really interesting: > With the exception of the current RTX 3000 (Samsung), all market launches of the year 2020 rely on the 7-nm chips from TSMC. ARM-SoC manufacturers such as Qualcomm also use 7 nm and have only recently moved capacity from Samsung to TSMC. TSMC is currently pretty much alone in the market with this technology and the production lines are therefore working at full capacity. A sudden increase in pro…

The ABF thing is fascinating actually. The company behind it Ajinomoto has for the last century since its existence built a business in food products: seasoning, oils, beverages, dairy products and chemicals. ABF came about through internal innovation. There's a really good (perhaps unintentionally funny) video of it here: https://players.brightcove.net/6050660078001/default_default...

I feel like this is the kind of video they would show to every employee on their first day at work, and to every school class that wants to pay them a visit at their factories. And it's really entertaining too!

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#20

Post by victor106 »

> Incidentally, the price per kilo for air transport has doubled worldwide and Europe is increasingly resorting to the new Silk Road, which China has pushed very hard: conventional road and rail transport, the prices of which have even tripled in the meantime! Especially bulky peripherals, such as PC screens, are also suffering greatly: according to a well-known brand, prices rose by 15 or 25% in France, for example.

So we are told by the FED and that there is no inflation and one of the justifications to keep rates low. If this is not inflation then what is?

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