Re:AMD vs. Intel vs. Nvidia: How Users Are Switching
by ineedasername on Monday February 01, 2021 @10:27PM
(#25997157)
Not really, there may have been ebbs & flows in demand, but the trend for the last 3-4 years has been prices much higher than retail:
If you want evidence check out this link. It shows the the lifetime prices of a GTX 1060 card since its release in 2016. It had an MSRP of $250, yet for most of it's life since sometime in 2017 it's been around $320 or higher, more than 125% of the MSRP, and, when this particular model was last available, over $400. Even used its almost always been above $250, with an average used price over $350:
I think you are mixing up a few cycles into one. There hasn't been a GPU "shortage" for multiple years. But there are certainly shortages at different times in the past few years.
Nvidia had to manipulate their Financial Numbers to cover up for excessive stock sitting in Channel due to Bitcoin crash. It took them 3 quarters ( and more ) to clear those inventory out. AMD had similar situation but their impact were much smaller due to less percentage using it for mining.
This teach GPU vendor an important lesson. ( Edit: Imagine the worst case scenerio AMD has a new product launch and has ample of stocks while you have three quarter worth of old products not moving. )
Since then they are much more conservative with respect to forecast and planning. It is FAR better to have enough demand waiting for GPU than it is for GPU sitting in channel quite literally begging for their Distributors to sell them.
This conservativeness has a knock-on effect on TSMC planning. At the start of pandemic everyone thought the economy could take a tank, which means forecast and estimation were even lower. But reality is all of a sudden PC sales and GPU sales are hitting new height due to more Stay at home and Gaming. Bitcoin is pushing into new height so casual miners are back.
You are taking two conservative supply decision ( Previous over Supply and Pandemic ) and two Demand reality ( PC / Gaming and Bitcoin ). That is Four level of differences. Catching up takes time, and it doesn't help when the whole industry, not just GPU, but everything from WiFi, 5G Modem, SoC, CPU, Amazon Server GPU, NPU are all in demand. Both Intel and AMD grew 10% despite Intel having lower ASP ( i.e Higher Unit Sales ) and were selling as many as they could. The Silicon demand are far greater than even the most optimistic analysis has predicted.