2021 was a tough year for the computing industry. Especially for graphics card manufacturers. PC enthusiasts had hoped the supply shortage would have ended towards the end of last year, but that wasn’t the case. Even in Q1 of 2022, GPUs are still hard to get a hold of at retail prices. As specialists in rack mounted PCs, we delve into the issues explaining the causes for the industry shortages faced over the past year.
What caused the huge demand in 2021?
Responsible for the display output of your PC, graphics card (GPUs) allow users to render and view content in higher quality and detail. During 2021 you may have noticed the extremely high prices of the cards, with the majority of retailers selling out or not having enough stock to facilitate the demand. Marketplace websites such as eBay had listers selling desired cards for much higher prices than the typical retail price. During the pandemic, cryptocurrency mining also became a large trend. Mining crypto utilises the power of a GPU card to introduce new tokens into circulation. Unlike the traditional GPU usage, primarily purchased for gaming or work-related purposes, mining became an issue for the entire GPU industry. Inflating the costs of cards far beyond MSRP. Nvidia tried to discourage cryptocurrency mining by introducing Nvidia Lite Hash Rate (LHR) cards. Unfortunately the artificial limits placed on these cards has not been enough to deter miners as they continue to be profitable investments.
Why did manufacturers struggle to keep up with the demand?
The two main leaders within the GPU industry; Nvidia and AMD make up nearly all of the GPUs found in desktops. The silicon chip shortage was the main reason for the delay in production, with the pandemic, China-US trade war and numerous severe weather events causing the chip manufacturers such as Samsung to halt or increase production times tremendously. The silicon chip shortage also affected the prices and availability of Automobiles and Video game consoles.
Will the shortage come to an end this year?
Since the start of 2022, the demand for GPUs has decreased considerably. Even though the thought of finding an affordable graphics card seems impossible in the current market, statistics seem to show a slow but steady increase in availability. Nvidia graphics cards have a much lower average price on eBay and other marketplace sites today than November 2021. This shows that the hype is starting to wear off, it may also be due to people waiting for the newest card yet to be released from the GPU giants. Manufacturers expect the shortages to continue to last until mid-2022, as backlogs in silicon chip production continue to be fulfilled.
Rack mounted PCs – G2 Digital
G2 Digital are specialists when it comes to designing high-performance rack mounted PCs or mini PCs for your business. As industry experts, we bring you the latest industry news that has us talking. If you want to find out more about investing in a new GPU, get in touch with our expert team here for up to date advice, or alternatively, give us a call on 01252 711 114.
