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When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

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Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#41

Post by vlovich123 »

rob74 wrote: post #35
colejohnson66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned this briefly, but: I think the big problem is the stay-at-home orders combined with massive improvements in technology results in tons more people wanting to upgrade immediately than initially expected (based on previous releases). It wouldn’t make sense for Nvidia to produce less than the demand on purpose because that results in less money. If we take the view of companies want to maximize profit, it…

Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity. If there were not really an increased demand for the products, noone would pay their inflated prices. When demand outstrips supply, the logical thing for manufacturers and (e-)retailers to do would be to increase prices themselves to balance out the situation, but for various reasons (one of which is possible negative PR) they are reluctant to do that,…

Your argument seems to be scalpers don’t have power because OEMs could just raise the price themselves and get all that scalp profit.

That’s good in theory but in practice you have complex sales channel configurations and contractual agreements. If Best Buy is selling your GPU at $400 because that’s the agreed upon MSRP, they’re going to be pretty unhappy if they’re out of stock and suddenly you decide to increase MSRP to $800 after they’ve sold out because then they’ve made even less money.

So your job now is to figure out what the scalp price will be in the future before there’s any demand.

Additionally, please factor in your pissed off customers who paid you $800 for launch day delivery for the price to potentially drop to $400 a few months after. What’s the cost of that brand damage?

Scalpers have numbers (if demand and supply are close, they have an artificial power to restrict it) and power (the OEMs have to tread a delicate line with many constituencies that scalpers don’t since you “blame” scalpers but that doesn’t hurt anyone’s actual reputation).

For all we know scalpers are part of the business plan. NVidia gets record sales numbers and press articles about how the GPU is sold out. All the OEMs offer preferential access to buy the GPUs giving them better margins, getting rid of inventory, and no reputation risk beyond at worst some marginal grumbling that they’re not doing enough to stop scalpers. The only ones getting screwed are early adopters who are eager to pay higher prices.

It’s the perfect way to segment the market by price sensitivity without paying for it or running afoul of any laws if it’s being done intentionally.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#42

Post by zamadatix »

coward8675309 wrote: post #26

The paranoid conspiratorial tone of TFA is a symptom of what's wrong with the Internet and therefore humanity: > The big brands that are ultimately at stake (Sony, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD) all talk about “demand exceeding supply”. Oh, really? [New paragraph.] It is a rather evasive explanation, without any communication about the actual state of their supply and production lines… The dark secret? Not only is demand GR…

There's some relevant backstory to understand what was said - Nvidia's CEO kicked off the RTX 3000 launch (which was the first of the recent chain of products that have been hard to get) by saying "The 3080 and 3090 have a demand issue, not a supply issue" and as you just pointed out this doesn't make any sense but here we are having to point out there are reasons in the world Nvidia can't produce enough GPUs since that sounds too negative for them to say outright for some reason.

Since companies have at least admitted there isn't going to be a lot of supply (some after reality actually hit them but at least they eventually said it) but still while dodging actually admitting it's simply because of the reasons in the article, hence the article.

I think it's a valid point and certainly not conspiratorial or what's wrong with humanity even if it wasn't.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#43

Post by theandrewbailey »

bserge wrote: post #39
theandrewbailey wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted a new GPU so I could run Cyberpunk 2077. Turns out that even people with those GPUs are having issues, so by the time I find one, the game should be sufficiently patched. I have a massive Steam backlog, so I'm not too frustrated.

Have you tried overclocking the everloving shit out of your current card? I mean throw everything at it, best thermal paste/pads, cooling, hardware mods. Genuine question, as that's what I do before deciding to buy a new, well, anything :D Surprisingly, it works pretty well... A few burned out GPUs and motherboards over two decades seems like a good risk/reward ratio.

A Radeon 7970 will only do so much. I'm not sure if it even has enough vram. If anything, I'd rather run it in potato mode before overclocking.

> A few burned out GPUs and motherboards over two decades seems like a good risk/reward ratio.

I'd rather keep my old equipment in working order to resell or donate.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#44

Post by [deleted] »

rob74 wrote: post #35
colejohnson66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned this briefly, but: I think the big problem is the stay-at-home orders combined with massive improvements in technology results in tons more people wanting to upgrade immediately than initially expected (based on previous releases). It wouldn’t make sense for Nvidia to produce less than the demand on purpose because that results in less money. If we take the view of companies want to maximize profit, it…

Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity. If there were not really an increased demand for the products, noone would pay their inflated prices. When demand outstrips supply, the logical thing for manufacturers and (e-)retailers to do would be to increase prices themselves to balance out the situation, but for various reasons (one of which is possible negative PR) they are reluctant to do that,…

[deleted]

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#45

Post by mschuster91 »

rob74 wrote: post #35
colejohnson66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned this briefly, but: I think the big problem is the stay-at-home orders combined with massive improvements in technology results in tons more people wanting to upgrade immediately than initially expected (based on previous releases). It wouldn’t make sense for Nvidia to produce less than the demand on purpose because that results in less money. If we take the view of companies want to maximize profit, it…

Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity. If there were not really an increased demand for the products, noone would pay their inflated prices. When demand outstrips supply, the logical thing for manufacturers and (e-)retailers to do would be to increase prices themselves to balance out the situation, but for various reasons (one of which is possible negative PR) they are reluctant to do that,…

> Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity.

Of course they are. Back in ye olde days when GPU mining for bitcoin was still possible (basically, FPGAs were not widespread and ASICs not even on the horizon), the amount of people who bought out all usable GPUs and resold them on ebay was massive. It was almost impossible to get anything for months unless you were willing to pay many multiples the ordinary worth.

In concert and other event tickets it's even worse. Some tickets have been known to sell at 20x markups, Rammstein concerts or Wacken tickets are usually outsold in a matter of hours and end up on ebay the day after.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#46

Post by doublerabbit »

coward8675309 wrote: post #34
colejohnson66 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy access to code to run your own bot doesn’t help. In 2000, the internet was pretty new, but now, YouTube exists and can teach anyone to set up their own bot for a chance to “get rich quick!”

I haven't looked, because I would get too depressed, but I'm sure YouTube contains videos teaching people how to get rich quick by creating videos that teach people how to get rich quick by…

I'm already watching YouTube videos of 16 year olds teaching me things related to what I was teaching when I was 16. It's depressing.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#47

Post by wyldfire »

wyldfire wrote: post #15
vmchale wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Replying to myself because I'm too late to edit it:

From March 2020: "The Surface Pro X Should Scare Apple" [1]. The headline looks pretty amusing in hindsight. Apple entering this market will likely validate Windows-on-ARM as a strategy. Microsoft made a pretty strategic blunder by not working to make sure a Chrome port could be available on the first generation, but it was available on the second generation Windows-ARM laptops.

[1] https://onezero.medium.com/the-surface-pro-x-should-scare-ap...

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#48

Post by stale2002 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #41
rob74 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity. If there were not really an increased demand for the products, noone would pay their inflated prices. When demand outstrips supply, the logical thing for manufacturers and (e-)retailers to do would be to increase prices themselves to balance out the situation, but for various reasons (one of which is possible negative PR) they are reluctant to do that,…

Your argument seems to be scalpers don’t have power because OEMs could just raise the price themselves and get all that scalp profit. That’s good in theory but in practice you have complex sales channel configurations and contractual agreements. If Best Buy is selling your GPU at $400 because that’s the agreed upon MSRP, they’re going to be pretty unhappy if they’re out of stock and suddenly you decide to increase MS…

So, I heard an interesting solution to the scalper price problem, where suppliers are unable to raise prices.

What Nvidia could do is sell a special "doctors without border's edition" version of their graphics card, that is 500$ more expensive, and the extra money is donated.

That way, the extra money goes to charity instead of the scalpers, and nobody can really complain about it, because what do you hate charity?

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#49

Post by kzrdude »

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?)

It's wildly off topic, but yeah I want that too.

Re: When important components become scarce: CPUs, GPUs

#50

Post by NoOneNew »

coward8675309 wrote: post #26

The paranoid conspiratorial tone of TFA is a symptom of what's wrong with the Internet and therefore humanity: > The big brands that are ultimately at stake (Sony, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD) all talk about “demand exceeding supply”. Oh, really? [New paragraph.] It is a rather evasive explanation, without any communication about the actual state of their supply and production lines… The dark secret? Not only is demand GR…

Yea, this also happens periodically, granted at lesser degrees. Incorrect projections, retooling, mundane management changes that HAVE to make their immediate mark on production and other crap. Given the ever so minor hiccups to the global supply chain we experienced throughout the year, on top of a plant catching ablaze... this isn't that surprising. This too shall pass.
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