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German retailer MindFactory has removed many AMD and Nvidia graphics cards from sale because the products have a delivery time of 3 months. According to them, the GPU shortage affects "the whole of Germany" or even the "whole Europe".
The demand for GPUs to mine cryptocurrencies, particularly Ethereum, has led to OEMs creating products specifically tailored to cryptocurrency mining. For example, new cards that are smaller, have fewer display ports, with cooling systems:
While the GPU shortage continues, there are some signs of improvement. There are now several models of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 in stock from various OEMs, but prices remain high and relatively close to the price of the GTX 1080. There are also a few more GTX 1060 6GB graphics cards available, and the price on the least expensive one has dropped significantly, down from $484.80 to $259.99.
At the same time, however, the price on the least expensive GTX 1050 Ti has climbed by about $10, and several models now cost around $200. The price on the least expensive Geforce GTX 1060 3GB has also climbed by roughly $20, as well. This likely indicates that sales of these cards have increased somewhat, pushing prices up accordingly.
Meanwhile, several OEMs, including Asus, Biostar, Sapphire, and Zotac, have announced new mining graphics cards that are tailored for cryptocurrency mining. We have also seen a new motherboard from Asrock that can support up to 13 GPUs for mining. Biostar has a similar board for AM4 CPUs that can support six GPUs. Although we haven't seen them yet, EVGA and MSI also have mining GPUs coming soon, and MSI will also have a motherboard designed for mining. Although these may be attractive to cryptocurrency miners, one source told us that they use the same GPU cores as traditional graphics cards, and thus don't address the underlying supply problem.
The shortages go all the way to the source. OEMs are reportedly having trouble getting GPU cores from Nvidia, and Nvidia can't get enough from TSMC. This is presumably the same situation for AMD and GlobalFoundries.
Previously: BitCoin, Ethereum and Gold
Cryptocoin GPU Bubble?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)
Think about it.
If you make GPUs that give a massive advantage in mining, then do you
10 sell these GPUs
20 use the GPUs for a few months until they're non-competitive then goto 10
Once the competition field is equal there's less money in mining, so that is the point to sell the useless shit.
(Score: 2) by TheB on Tuesday July 11 2017, @11:47AM
ASIC miner manufacturers sell the hardware for less than they would make mining themselves to mitigate risk.
Guaranteed profit now as opposed to potentially 5%-20% more in 2 years.
It allows them to make more chips now than they could if they were mining, resulting in more profits for themselves.
Most of the time people would be better off investing in the stock market than taking on the manufacturer's risk.
It isn't a bad idea for gamers with $500 GPUs sitting around to mine while not playing games.
If enough gamers do so, GPU mining could become unprofitable again. This keeps the transaction verification decentralized.
Won't work with bitcoins or other SHA256 crypto currencies though. ASIC dominate there and without another large use for them professional miners can continue to exist.