author: Bart Swiatek
RTX 3000 Cards May Become Even Harder to Obtain
According to representatives of Asus, shipments of Nvidia's GPUs decreased in the first quarter of this year. This means that the availability of the company's GPUs may become even worse than in recent months.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- According to Asus representatives, Nvidia's GPU shipments decreased in the first quarter of this year;
- This may make it even more difficult to purchase a GPU from the company;
- The reason is likely to be the lower-than-expected production capacity at Samsung's factory, which manufactures chips for Nvidia.
During a recent conference with investors, Asus representatives commented on the availability of Nvidia graphics cards (via Tom's Hardware). According to them, shipments of Nvidia's GPUs decreased again in the last quarter, suggesting that acquiring a new GeForce card will continue to be difficult in the near term - perhaps even more difficult than before.
"The most pressing issue for GPUs right now is the shortage of Nvidia's GPUs There was a quarter-over-quarter decrease in shipments [in Q1]. Because of that shortage, we are seeing [graphics cards] price hikes," said Asus' executive.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Nvidia shipped 9.1 million GPUs to the market - about a million more than a year earlier. Unfortunately, in a situation of rapidly growing demand, primarily related to the ongoing pandemic and the surge in cryptocurrency value, this number proved to be insufficient to meet demand.
Asus representatives are convinced that Samsung's factory produces fewer RTX 3000 chips than the Nvidia assumed, which may hinder the improvement of the market situation.
"As for when we will be able to resolve this gap [between supply and demand], it is really hard to tell. Our guess is that the gap might have been caused by lower yields upstream. As for when [Nvidia] can increase that yield is something hard for us to predict," said the executive.