This experience reminds me a lot of 1995 with Win95 suddenly doubling the base ram requirements that had been the norm for years. Vista x64 doubled them again. When it happened with Win95, though, ram prices went way up until new production factories came online, and then we saw the price of ram drop like a stone for a long while--up until Vista doubled them again. Wasn't as bad for Vista, because the ram suppliers had built in a lot of overcapacity after Win95. But the present lengthy shortages were primarily caused by poor planning in the supply lines, imo, which wasn't helped by goofy Apple-ites talking about "post PC eras" and talking up the notion that "The PC is dead," and etc., as if everyone would deep-six his desktop to buy cell phones...;) That was never true nor was it ever going to be true in the future. AMD finally re-energized the flagging PC industry that Intel had largely allowed to stagnate due to its monopoly market position--which is something typical of Intel as opposed to unusual. All it took to reignite the PC industry were new and compelling CPUs and GPUs--and until AMD lit a competitive fire under Intel's bottom, Intel was very slow in offering the markets new and innovative products. Even the Apple faithful saw Apple drop Intel like a hot potato. Bad management in so many companies causes a lot of disruption in markets such as ours.

AMD didn't reignite shit. It's all COVID and people working and studying from home.

then 24hrs hours later there is a Chinese power shortage...

So Grandma Videocard must wait at least another year before retiring. Hopefully she survives that long. It'll be tough pulling her out of the computer with the wheelchair still attached to the heatsink.

mackintosh:

AMD didn't reignite crap. It's all COVID and people working and studying from home.

Somehow you are forgetting the crypto crap that's responsible for at least half of the video card shortage/overpricing.

Kaarme:

Somehow you are forgetting the crypto crap that's responsible for at least half of the video card shortage/overpricing.

While crypto definitely didn't help, its nothing new. Its always been there and it wasn't a problem. However, billions of people stuck at home was something new and something which is mostly responsible for the shortages. Families who maybe had one old PC at home and used phone otherwise or PCs at work, suddenly required several new PCs, consoles or notebooks. This is why the prices are what they are. Also, while availability might improve next year, I really doubt that prices will stabilize that quickly. Both AMD's and NVIDIA's cards are just overpriced from MSRP point of view. They surely released the new cards with better performance, but they also shifted them up a tier in their pricing.

Backstabak:

While crypto definitely didn't help, its nothing new. Its always been there and it wasn't a problem. However, billions of people stuck at home was something new and something which is mostly responsible for the shortages. Families who maybe had one old PC at home and used phone otherwise or PCs at work, suddenly required several new PCs, consoles or notebooks. This is why the prices are what they are.

Sure, it has been around for a long time, but as has never been as mainstream as it's now. With some dubious countries even making it an official currency and the likes of Elon Musk investing over a billion dollars in it, it has gathered unprecedented publicity. People who have never gamed, for real, nor can build their own PCs are buying video cards to mine crypto, even if they have to ask someone else to set up the system. The Covid situation as well gave a huge boost to the crypto scheme. The myriad net cafes in Asia, in lack of customers, turned to crypto. Instead of desperately trying to survive somehow like most cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, tourists attractions, etc, they just bought more and more GPUs. I've said it before, but simply the availability is not the whole issue either. The crypto scheme also drove up the prices. Miners can make back the money they invested, so they pay any price to an unknown, but high, limit. Gamers don't make a single cent back, unless it's one of the rare pro gamers. People might have needed to spend a lot of time at home due to Covid, but I bet most folks aren't willing to pay 70% extra for a video card just because they have got nothing better to do.

Kaarme:

Sure, it has been around for a long time, but as has never been as mainstream as it's now. With some dubious countries even making it an official currency and the likes of Elon Musk investing over a billion dollars in it, it has gathered unprecedented publicity. People who have never gamed, for real, nor can build their own PCs are buying video cards to mine crypto, even if they have to ask someone else to set up the system. The Covid situation as well gave a huge boost to the crypto scheme. The myriad net cafes in Asia, in lack of customers, turned to crypto. Instead of desperately trying to survive somehow like most cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, tourists attractions, etc, they just bought more and more GPUs. I've said it before, but simply the availability is not the whole issue either. The crypto scheme also drove up the prices. Miners can make back the money they invested, so they pay any price to an unknown, but high, limit. Gamers don't make a single cent back, unless it's one of the rare pro gamers. People might have needed to spend a lot of time at home due to Covid, but I bet most folks aren't willing to pay 70% extra for a video card just because they have got nothing better to do.

Again, I'm not disputing that crypto didn't play a role in the shortages, but the genera outrage that its solely responsible for it is just wrong.Those net cafes in Asia already had PCs that they wanted to utilize, so surely that isn't the reason for the increased demand. Its the people who found themselves stuck at home having nothing to do and not spending money on their usual hobbies or social activities. In many countries these people also got extra cash, which many have spend on fun. Now if you have family multiply this problem by number of people living in that household. If you have two kids, they will hardly wait for their sibling while they finish gaming. Consoles added to this too, because they need the same chips, which is why the new consoles are unavailable too.

If lisa says so it must be true. I mean did she ever lie to us?