TSMC price hike expected to impact CPUs and graphics cards this year

[midian182]

Why it matters: We’ve seen quite a few claims recently that this year will see the nightmarish graphics card situation improve, but prices returning to pre-chip-shortage levels might be further away than hoped. According to a new report, TSMC has already raised its quotes by 10 - 20% for both its 7nm and 5nm processes, and that will impact GPUs, CPUs, and ASICs.

According to DigiTimes (via Tom’s Hardware), TSMC’s rising foundry costs will have an impact on all processors made using its 7nm and 5nm process nodes. It will hit AMD the hardest as team red’s product line includes the 7nm Zen 2 and Zen 3 architectures, while this year’s Zen 4 is built on the 5nm process.

Although Intel will be less affected, the chips it already relies on TSMC to manufacture could get more expensive for consumers due to the Taiwanese firm’s price hike. Team blue could also make its products more expensive to cover the company’s own fab development and expansion; Intel plans to spend $25 billion to $28 billion on chip manufacturing in 2022.

TSMC (click to expand)

It’s not just CPUs that could feel the consequences of TSMC’s rising quotes. All but one of AMD’s current RDNA 2 consumer graphics cards are manufactured on 7nm, while RDNA 3 is expected to be built on 5nm. Even the rumored refresh of the Radeon RX 6000-series is said to use 6nm, so they could also be impacted.

Nvidia, meanwhile, uses the Samsung 8N node for the consumer Ampere line, but the upcoming RTX 4000 series is expected to be another built on TSMC’s 5nm process. Nvidia recently said the supply of its cards would improve in the second half of the year—I.e., when the RTX 4000 series gets here—so while availability might be better, MSRPs could be a lot higher than expected.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. TSMC is spending $44 billion on upgrading capacity this year; card shipments are predicted to increase 10%; and mining demand should fall due to Ethereum’s upcoming shift from a proof-of-work mechanism to proof-of-stake. And if you want to buy a card from eBay, the good news is that their average price has fallen over the last few weeks.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93040-tsmc-price-hike-expected-impact-cpu-graphics-cards.html

 

[NicktheWVAHick]

I thought as soon as the South American nickel miners returned to work everything would get back to normal (sarcasm).

 

[Faelan]

At this rate, PC gaming is going to be a lifestyle choice that will exclude a lot of other things.

Hmm… do I want to have kids, a nice new car or a midrange GPU. Hmmm…. Decisions decisions…

 

[theruck]

So long AMD, welcome back Intel

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"It’s not all doom and gloom, though. TSMC is spending $44 billion on upgrading capacity this year;"
Well they could add 200% capacity, doesnt matter if its unaffordable to most people

" card shipments are predicted to increase 10%;"
Good to know the miners will have more stock to choose from. The rest of us are still stuck with 6 year old hardware.

" and mining demand should fall due to Ethereum’s upcoming shift from a proof-of-work mechanism to proof-of-stake."
When pigs fly. And once it DOES go PoS, there are 1000 alt coins to mine and make more $$$.

The crypto market has become the new speculation market for investors big and small. There will continue to be siginficant interest in it once etherium goes down.

 

[Kosmoz]

In this lunacy asylum that the world is turning into, at what point the prices will be not just insanely high, but straight up "no more, that's enough"?

At $5000 / GPU? Or maybe we can go to $10000 / GPU?

How many stupid, yet full of money people are?
And what is the maximum madness in acceptable price for those fools with more money than sense?

Because they are the reason the prices still go up... They keep buying...

 

[Achaios]

So long as the Whales keep spamming the "buy GPU" button on ebay, TSMC, the Leatherman et al, will keep coming up with excuses to jack up prices ad infinitum.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

In this lunacy asylum that the world is turning into, at what point the prices will be not just insanely high, but straight up "no more, that's enough"?

At $5000 / GPU? Or maybe we can go to $10000 / GPU?

How many stupid, yet full of money people are?
And what is the maximum madness in acceptable price for those fools with more money than sense?

Because they are the reason the prices still go up... They keep buying...

Gamers are the biggest consoomers on the planet. They'v turned gaming into the most profitable entertainment venue on earth through the billions spent on microtransactions and lootboxes. And there are millions willing to shell out stupid money.

The only thing that will stop this is a hard economic crash ala 2008.

 

[Nintenboy01]

At some point the crypto market is bound to crash hard, the bubble is much bigger than it was in 2017-2018 and money is being printed like mad in DeFi

 

[Neatfeatguy]

At this rate, PC gaming is going to be a lifestyle choice that will exclude a lot of other things.

Hmm… do I want to have kids, a nice new car or a midrange GPU. Hmmm…. Decisions decisions…

I know you're joking and you may even have kids yourself, but the cost of kids doesn't even compete in either of those categories, not even close.

Daycare costs alone for a newborn in my area are pushing $18K a year (upwards of $350 a week). Don't forget costs of diapers and formula and clothing and all the wonderful things you need to transport said kid. Also, with the American health insurance and outrageous medical costs, the child alone could cost you $10k just to be born and the multiple checkups and shots.... All said and done, you could spend upwards $40k that first year. Kids are fu¢king expensive - no joke.

First year my son (when he was a newborn) and daughter (who was 4) were in daycare together the wife and I spent $26k on daycare alone (this was 8 years ago, I'm sure costs have gone up since)

I love my two kids, but the amount of money the wife and I have put into them.....it hurts my head just thinking about it.

So, quite honestly, if you don't have kids and went the route of having them you may never be able to afford a new GPU if you're not pulling in $100k+ a year.

As for new GPUs, I'm sitting a on a 3070 and 3070Ti that I need to sell. These cost a lot less than kids ever will.

 

[Watzupken]

In this lunacy asylum that the world is turning into, at what point the prices will be not just insanely high, but straight up "no more, that's enough"?

At $5000 / GPU? Or maybe we can go to $10000 / GPU?

How many stupid, yet full of money people are?
And what is the maximum madness in acceptable price for those fools with more money than sense?

Because they are the reason the prices still go up... They keep buying...

That point will happen if people don't chase after these things. The problem is that when prices go up, people still continue to clamor for it. So naturally when they see such strong demand, they just keep pushing prices up. But with each price increase, some people will give up. At some point, high end PC components will not be affordable to most and that is when prices should come down or come down hard.

 

[Shadowboxer]

People are blaming miners. But the TSMC allocation is more on car manufacturers, miners buy up all the GPU stock but that doesnt affect other customers using the process. Modern electric cars have tonnes of electronics inside it now and with governments around the world announcing that they will ban sales of petrol cars, manufacturers are ramping up production of ev's and this is putting huge pressure on the chip foundries to produce silicon for these vehicles.

AMD are providing Tesla with a powerful RDNA2 APU that you cant buy so people can play games in their cars. But the best we can get is a 5600G or a 5700G which is rubbish compared to the thing they give Tesla.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22462660/amd-tesla-model-x-s-plaid-ryzen-radeon-rdna-2

So if you want to get mad about TSMCs pricing, its actually electric car manufacturers that you should direct your hate gun at. Not that we need to give people any more reasons to hate on Elon Musk these days!

 

[umbala]

People are blaming miners. But the TSMC allocation is more on car manufacturers, miners buy up all the GPU stock but that doesnt affect other customers using the process. Modern electric cars have tonnes of electronics inside it now and with governments around the world announcing that they will ban sales of petrol cars, manufacturers are ramping up production of ev's and this is putting huge pressure on the chip foundries to produce silicon for these vehicles.

AMD are providing Tesla with a powerful RDNA2 APU that you cant buy so people can play games in their cars. But the best we can get is a 5600G or a 5700G which is rubbish compared to the thing they give Tesla.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22462660/amd-tesla-model-x-s-plaid-ryzen-radeon-rdna-2

So if you want to get mad about TSMCs pricing, its actually electric car manufacturers that you should direct your hate gun at. Not that we need to give people any more reasons to hate on Elon Musk these days!

Your reasoning is quite flawed. First of all, 99% of the cars produced today do not need their microchips manufactured on the latest process. They do just fine on 12nm, 14nm, or even 28nm. Secondly, trying to blame Tesla for chip shortages is just dumb. They manufacture less than 1 million cards per year and only a small percentage of that will use a high end GPU. So yeah, look elsewhere for someone to blame.

 

[hwertz]

I mean, I'm not surprised -- supply and demand. With a chip shortage (a.k.a. demand exceeding supply), it makes sense to raise the price you're charging. So TSMC has.

"At this rate, PC gaming is going to be a lifestyle choice that will exclude a lot of other things."
Admittedly pricing now is straight-up bad. But there have been crazy expensive gaming rigs all along; even in the 80's you could splurge on the high end CPU, "no wait state" memory system, super VGA instead of VGA or (ugh) CGA, and so on. By the time the Voodoo came out and certainly by the time the early Radeons and Geforces were out, you could spend $500+ on a GPU, $500+ on a CPU and motherboard, high end power supply and case, high end storage, and end up with a $1500-$2000 system that would run everything at 120FPS on "Ultra", secure in the knowledge you've got the best, latest and greatest.. or spend $150 on a GPU, $150 on a CPU and motherboard, and end up with a $400-500 system that'd run things at 60FPS on "High" and still be perfectly happy gaming.

Really it's the same now, the pricing is straight-up bad but you can still get sub-$200 GPUs that, realistically, are perfectly adequate for gaming. It's no RTX, you will not be doing like 8K 144fps gaming or whatever on it, but I even have a system with a GTX 650 and have found it perfectly adequate -- those games I've had to turn down to medium, the medium is already high enough quality it's hard to tell medium, high, and ultra apart, like "OK I can pause it and see a small difference here and here", not noticeable when the game is actually moving. And, of course, the price of LED strips has not gone up like GPUs and CPUs have, so you can still build a budget gaming system and put all the lights you want on your case if you're into that hahaha.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Your reasoning is quite flawed. First of all, 99% of the cars produced today do not need their microchips manufactured on the latest process. They do just fine on 12nm, 14nm, or even 28nm. Secondly, trying to blame Tesla for chip shortages is just dumb. They manufacture less than 1 million cards per year and only a small percentage of that will use a high end GPU. So yeah, look elsewhere for someone to blame.

Actually my reasoning is bang on. Maybe you could write to the manufacturers and tell them what they should be doing instead?

TSMC ramps up auto chip production as carmakers wrestle with shortages

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) is "expediting" auto-related products through its wafer fabs and reallocating wafer capacity, the company said on Thursday, amid a global shortage of auto chips.

www.reuters.com

Always happy to help.

 

[Danny101]

AMD needs to partner with Global Foundries to get them a new smaller node process. Even at a 10nm process would be fine at this point. A Ryzen 3000 series reissue at this process node would very much fill the gap. Relying on TSMC is a fool's errand.