The GPU market is a mess: low stock, inflated prices, and allegations of fake MSRPs. Nvidia and AMD's latest GPUs are scarce or overpriced. What's causing this chaos? Let's break it all down.
The State of the GPU: All Fake MSRPs?
- Thread starter Scorpus
- Start date
yRaz
Posts: 9,267 +16,312
I plan on picking up a 9070XT around the time that kids go back to school. Demand should be lowest, supply should be higher and the prices should have stabilized. There should be enough MSRP models around that the board partner cards have to compete with them and *hopefully* some of the tariff situation will have been sorted out. However, if that tariffs do influced the cost of MSRP then so be it, the 6700XT I'm currently rocking is the lowest end GPU I've owned relative to the time it was purchased in in probably 20 years. I did get 4 years out of it, but I had to pay scalper price when my 1080ti died and warranty was denied. Let's just say that I paid almost as much for my 6700XT as I did my 1080ti.
WhiteLeaff
Posts: 1,050 +2,034
A large RDNA 4 chip like the 4090/5090 would be a beast. I hope they keep tweaking the software as well because you can see that there's still performance on the table and buggy games that perform badly on RDNA 4.
Achaios
Posts: 695 +1,698
Word on the street is that Mindfactory.de is on its way out. For the EU, I recommend you use
https://geizhals.eu/
If you do, you will see that there is not one 5070 model sold for MSRP in Germany (and almost certainly all across the EU as well), which was supposed to be EUR 629 (same with the RX 9070). Cheapest 5070 atm in Germany is EUR 739, +110 EUR over MSRP.
In addition, in many EU countries GPU pricing for midrange GPUs is +150-350 EUR OVER GERMAN PRICING!
Neatfeatguy
Posts: 2,273 +4,575
Beerfloat
Posts: 1,225 +2,344
Surprise, another recommendation to wait. If it were up to TechSpot the right time to buy is.. well, we don't know, but 'now' is never the right answer. Surely brighter uplands will be right along. Any time now.
So cool we've got another cost per frame comparison to look forward to. Cause people are in a position to carefully weigh deals right now. And not just massively voting with their wallets that any GPU they can get their hands on is actually worth like 50% over supposed MSRP to them.
So cool we've got another cost per frame comparison to look forward to. Cause people are in a position to carefully weigh deals right now. And not just massively voting with their wallets that any GPU they can get their hands on is actually worth like 50% over supposed MSRP to them.
OortCloud
Posts: 2,230 +3,223
Terrible generation of GFX cards. Very little improvements over last (also awful) generation and horrible pricing. Add to that the omnishambles of lies and failures from nVidia and you get an all round clusterf**k release.
Branch
Posts: 68 +74
(gives up reading second half of article.)
Just show me the person(s) I need to punch in the face for this sh*t show.
Just show me the person(s) I need to punch in the face for this sh*t show.
deathspeed
Posts: 653 +607
Screw Nvidia and AMD - has anyone actually seen an Intel Arc B580 for sale? I've been looking in the usual online places for US since launch day, and have only found the insanely overpriced Gunnir and Weeliao models.
No Tims, no no no... once again you are showing you are not understanding the business aspect. Nvidia didn't resupply the channel because they didn't wanted to have an oversupply issue like they were having with Ampere. You have a short memory...
No to mention that the 5000 series lackluster performances literally was a selling point for the 7000 series from AMD.
Sorry Tim, but AIBs have a scale of pricing expectation, however... THEY DIDN'T CARE... because half of them are also selling Nvidia GPUs and they knew the channel was and will be empty! So, they just decided to go for the HIGHEST margins! It is not AMD's fault, it is the frigging AIBs selling you a base model 5090 at 3000$.
No to mention that the 5000 series lackluster performances literally was a selling point for the 7000 series from AMD.
Sorry Tim, but AIBs have a scale of pricing expectation, however... THEY DIDN'T CARE... because half of them are also selling Nvidia GPUs and they knew the channel was and will be empty! So, they just decided to go for the HIGHEST margins! It is not AMD's fault, it is the frigging AIBs selling you a base model 5090 at 3000$.
Why would you buy a GPU that the vast majority of the used market is already beating?
deathspeed
Posts: 653 +607
I have NEVER had good luck with used GPUs, or even refurbished ones. Scams, blown capacitors, dead fans, generally not lasting as long as new...never again.
I had a very weird GPU which I bought when I desperately needed something temporarily.
One of the fans broke within days of purchase. I purchased a pair and replaced broken one. But for some reason it still was not working. I used that card with 120 fans connected to a fan hub till I threw it away. Another one from Ebay was overheating badly. One time it turned off and I thought it died. But then I used a tutorial to bring it back. I eventually sold it with a water block which allowed me to keep using it for another 2 years.
What is even worse, GPUs are getting more complex, hotter. The risk of buying used only increased in the last 5 years.
It does not mean that there are no good used GPUs. Many I sold had 0 problems, and I am sure they worked for years after. It is just, when I see a used GPU selling for 15% less, I do not understand the person buying it.
Eldrach
Posts: 599 +775
Nvidia has an immense backlog of Blackwell cards for the server market - currently an expected delivery time of over 12 months. The biggest problem for Nvidia is allocating their production line at TSMC for consumer gpus when they need to use it to produce server gpus enmasse. Wafers of lower quality will be set aside for consumer gpus - and then produced in batches between filling the backlog for server gpus.
Fact is we probably won’t see a «normal» supply of consumer gpus until the initial AI boom is over - which could take at least a couple of years. There’s too much money in AI at the moment
Fact is we probably won’t see a «normal» supply of consumer gpus until the initial AI boom is over - which could take at least a couple of years. There’s too much money in AI at the moment
Squid Surprise
Posts: 7,881 +8,177
The right time to buy is almost always a few weeks after you actually buy it
This goes for CPUs as well
I really don't get the mentality behind the "I must have it now" thought process. The only people that are really forced to buy immediately are people who have a hardware failure. Everyone else is free to wait until the hardware they want becomes available at a price they are willing to pay.
Squid Surprise
Posts: 7,881 +8,177
You can blame the capitalist system - we survive on consumerism… so companies have been spending the past century or so convincing people that they “need” their products - even when they probably don’t.
The credit system allows even the poorest to purchase the “latest and greatest” stuff, putting them even further in debt.
That's right out of the Communist Manifesto.
"Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism." - Marx
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The article missed a key point.
Making GPUs using contracted 4nm wafers with TSMC is a money losing proposition for both Nvidia and AMD. Well, not exactly money losing - more like only making a fraction of what they could.
I'll explain by using some back-of-the-napkin math.
It costs AMD and Nvidia around $20k for every 300mm wafer. Each one of those wafers on a 4nm process can be used to make:
921 9800X3D chips that sell for around $500 and probably produce $300-400k of profits for every wafer.
163 9070XT GPU chips that they sell to their AIB partners for $400 and probably produce $50K of profits per wafer.
71 5090 GPU chips that they sell to their AIB partners for $1200 and probably produce $90k of profits per wafer.
63 H100 AI chips that they use to make their Hopper AI boards and probably produce $1.5M of profits per wafer.
AMD and Nvidia only have so much contracted capacity. You can see why they aren't really incented to make consumer GPUs when they can sell AI boards and X3D cpus as fast as they can make them. They would make more GPUs if the capacity was available, but TSMC has been raising rates 10-20% every year and there is no spare wafers for them.
GPU pricing is only going to keep going up since there is almost certainly not going to be excess production for a long time.
Making GPUs using contracted 4nm wafers with TSMC is a money losing proposition for both Nvidia and AMD. Well, not exactly money losing - more like only making a fraction of what they could.
I'll explain by using some back-of-the-napkin math.
It costs AMD and Nvidia around $20k for every 300mm wafer. Each one of those wafers on a 4nm process can be used to make:
921 9800X3D chips that sell for around $500 and probably produce $300-400k of profits for every wafer.
163 9070XT GPU chips that they sell to their AIB partners for $400 and probably produce $50K of profits per wafer.
71 5090 GPU chips that they sell to their AIB partners for $1200 and probably produce $90k of profits per wafer.
63 H100 AI chips that they use to make their Hopper AI boards and probably produce $1.5M of profits per wafer.
AMD and Nvidia only have so much contracted capacity. You can see why they aren't really incented to make consumer GPUs when they can sell AI boards and X3D cpus as fast as they can make them. They would make more GPUs if the capacity was available, but TSMC has been raising rates 10-20% every year and there is no spare wafers for them.
GPU pricing is only going to keep going up since there is almost certainly not going to be excess production for a long time.
Perhaps, it would make sense to have other companies beside TSMC to supply wafers for low end middle end GPUs. Relying on one company for something as crucial never benefited people.
Companies, not individuals, survive on consumerism. So as individuals we can only blame ourselves for constantly perpetuating the cycle - if we don't buy products at artificially inflated prices, pricing will eventually normalise to a lower price point.
You really shouldn't think of it as what the product becomes. There is massive demand for lithography between 6 and 3nm. Some clients have huge markups on their products and others do not. GPUs have gotten really really big which means fewer chips per wafer and the cost per wafer has been skyrocketing. AMD has contracted for a certain number of wafers at 4nm. They can make either Ryzen CPUs or Radeon GPU cores with that capacity. The 9070 GPU core is 5x the size of a CPU like the 9800X3D. They can get 921 CPUs that they can sell for almost $500 or they can get 163 9070/9070XT chips to sell to their partners for a similar amount. There really isn't anywhere they can turn to - all fabs are booked. The reason there isn't enough supply of GPUs is because they earn much less ber wafer than many other products.
We wouldn't have this problem at all if the market hadn't pushed hard into RT. If Witcher 3 quality was still good enough GPUs wouldn't need such huge chunks of silicon.
Eldrach
Posts: 599 +775
Well - AMD is trying to claw back market share in the GPU market, so it’s not unthinkable they are actually prioritizing a bit just to make that happen.
Besides - the game that is a good candidate for the game of the year award doesn’t use Raytracing (Kingdom Come 2) and it looks amazing and runs amazing on older hardware.
RT is great, but it turns out people don’t care that much as you can make games without it that looks top notch
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