European retailer predicted a worsening shortage of GeForce RTX 30 series video cards, and explained the reasons
A large European retailer Alternate, operating in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, contacted NVIDIA directly to find out the details regarding GeForce RTX 30 series graphics accelerators’ availability. Until the end of the first quarter, the shortage of these video cards will become even stronger, since several factors will affect it at once.
The seller found out how things are with graphics accelerators’ supply and what to expect shortly. At the moment, the situation with the availability of video cards from suppliers is as follows:
- GeForce RTX 3090: there will be few deliveries, but now there are few open orders;
- GeForce RTX 3080: very few shipments expected with a huge number of open orders;
- GeForce RTX 3070: a small volume of deliveries of video cards is expected. However, there are not very many orders;
- GeForce RTX 3060 Ti: very few shipments shortly and a relatively high number of open orders for deliveries;
In general, you should not expect a sufficient number of new deliveries of GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti shortly. NVIDIA partners have received many orders but cannot produce and supply video cards in sufficient quantities. The same Alternate is not in the first place in the list of orders from manufacturers. The situation with the availability of GeForce RTX 3070 and GeForce RTX 3090 looks better, but large deliveries of these models are also not expected shortly. These models, as it turned out, are far from being so popular among buyers. Therefore the waiting list for their orders is much shorter.
Several factors contributed to the lingering shortage of graphics accelerators. The most obvious is that demand exceeds the volume of available offers. NVIDIA (read its manufacturing partner Samsung) cannot produce enough GPUs, including due to the pandemic situation. But this is not the only reason. The first quarter fell on the Chinese New Year, resulting from which the supply of materials required for the production of video cards decreased. NVIDIA cannot provide a sufficient amount of raw materials for the production of new GPU chips, apparently due to the lack of some components in the supply chain. Similar problems, according to early statements made last January, faced AMD, which lacks processor substrates.
Alternate also added that the original offer price would remain the same for buyers who have already placed orders and are waiting in line. For new orders, the price will increase. As pointed out by Tom’s Hardware, another large Dutch retailer Megekko also processed all orders, made a queue, and canceled people trying to buy several video cards at once.
