Stefan Mileschin

One of the more tricky issues revolving around the GPU shortages of the past several months has been the matter of how to address the problem on the GPU supply side of matters. While the crux of the problem has been a massive shift in demand driven by a spike in cryptocurrency prices, demand has also not tapered off like many of us would have hoped. And while I hesitate to define the current situation as the new normal, if demand isn’t going to wane then bringing video card prices back down to reasonable levels is going to require a supply-side solution.

This of course sounds a lot easier than it actually is. Ignoring for the moment that GPU orders take months to process – there are a lot of steps in making a 16nm/14nm FinFET wafer – the bigger risk is that cryptocurrency-induced GPU demand is not stable. Ramping up GPU production means gambling that demand will stay high enough long enough to absorb the additional GPUs, and then not immediately contract and have the market flooded with used video cards. The latter being an important point that AMD got burnt on the last time this happened, when the collapse of the cryptocurrency-prices and the resulting demand for video cards resulted in the market becoming flooded with used Hawaii (290/390 series) cards.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12380...imiting-factor