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I think that the fact that AMD outsold Intel according to multiple sources last part of 2020 points to why there is a huge problem right now of demand and supply. Also people still saying that there is no point if you can't buy products should realise that ALL the companies are pumping out products as fast as possible...
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
Pleiades (13-01-2021)
Opinion not fact...unless you have the evidence to make this statement a fact? You have evidence to show that no company is deliberately not pumping out products as fast as possible to inflate the value of those products and therefore make more money in the short to medium term?Originally Posted by 3dcandy
Unlike say the evidence found that MSI was scalping it's own products and thereby exacerbating a shortage to inflate the value of those products?
It's logic. Deliberately holding back your own supply does nothing to inflate prices if you have competitors also selling products - they'll simply get the sale and you'll miss out. In MSI's case it was a rogue subsidiary who got access to cards they shouldn't have, and MSI forced them to refund back to RRP prices.
Pleiades (13-01-2021)
INTEL AT CES ...."next to it I have an identically configured AMD system except it features their 12 core R7 processor"....good news intel named a new product but Lisa skipped it.
You’re right that it’s logical, but it’s only logical if you consider it in a vacuum. If there is a supply problem which affects all companies as well, then there is a temptation to constrain output and hike per unit prices because a) people will pay them b) your margin increases and c) given the entire market is supply constrained they CANT buy from your competitor any easier.It's logic. Deliberately holding back your own supply does nothing to inflate prices if you have competitors also selling products - they'll simply get the sale and you'll miss out. In MSI's case it was a rogue subsidiary who got access to cards they shouldn't have, and MSI forced them to refund back to RRP prices.
We’re being told that it’s a demand issue, but that is not being borne out by facts. Scan.co.uk has 660 outstanding preorders for 3080s. You cannot preorder them and haven’t been able to for months because they aren’t accepting orders until they’ve made good on their sales. That is NOT many units. They’re not coming through quickly. 500 units every 3 weeks to one of the biggest hardware etailers in the UK? With the demand anticipated by Nvidia months before release. Sorry but no. They would expect demand to sell thousands of the things every week.
The demand is there but the customers demanding the product aren’t getting it. So it simply is not a case of them having normal supply and selling out. They have not got anywhere near normal supply. Dr Su is suggesting this is not the case and I don’t believe her. Because it looks better to investors if you say your product is really popular than say you dropped one by not getting enough supply.
In such a situation there's no need to constrain supply, you can achieve the same by simply raising prices.
You are right, these companies are not in a vacuum. So if one graphics card maker held back supply, then other companies who take that chip would step in and take the sale. If AMD are holding back, then Nvidia would step in and take the sale.
But these shortages are pretty much across all components. I'm trying to put together an upgrade for my wife's PC which will be a CPU, motherboard and ram and *none* of the components I wanted as first choice are in stock or at sane prices. Last month I built a PC for work, and it was a nightmare of part availability for almost everything.
I get it that with a duopoly in things like PC processors and video cards the prices are easily bumped upwards, but when stuff like RAM and SSDs are slim pickings there is a bigger problem here.
Iota (13-01-2021)
In the case of Nvidia, they are constraining supply into the consumer market though, because they are selling large shipments directly to crypto miners. The effect is that supply is constrained to the usual channels. MSI backpedaling on their “rogue” subsidiary doing the scalping was only because they got caught doing it. There is evidence suggesting that they have done it several times before.In such a situation there's no need to constrain supply, you can achieve the same by simply raising prices.
What I’m getting at is that all of these companies, AMD, Nvidia etc seem to be pushing the message that there is no supply issue, no issue with components etc and if there is it’s minor and they can manage it. They’re saying that the scarcity is due to overwhelming demand and popularity. But as I say, there is no evidence of this and it is just puffery for investors so that their share prices stay nice and high.
It would be interesting to see the sales figures for the likes of the 30 series (retail sale figures), the 5000 series Ryzens and the 6000 series Radeons. Because I would bet that they aren’t massively more than previous launches, it’s just that their restocking is crap.
If they're selling large shipments to cryptominers then it would suggest they are indeed pumping them out as fast as they can and the constraint is demand led.
Iota (13-01-2021)
Yes, but that is what I’m saying. There is a problem here with supply which is industry wide. But read this article and eat up Su’s responses and you’d be forgiven for not realising that. Same with Nvidia when they are asked about it. It’s not supply, it’s demand they say...You are right, these companies are not in a vacuum. So if one graphics card maker held back supply, then other companies who take that chip would step in and take the sale. If AMD are holding back, then Nvidia would step in and take the sale.
But these shortages are pretty much across all components. I'm trying to put together an upgrade for my wife's PC which will be a CPU, motherboard and ram and *none* of the components I wanted as first choice are in stock or at sane prices. Last month I built a PC for work, and it was a nightmare of part availability for almost everything.
I get it that with a duopoly in things like PC processors and video cards the prices are easily bumped upwards, but when stuff like RAM and SSDs are slim pickings there is a bigger problem here.
Like you have I recently been getting components for a new build. I’m waiting until end of Jan for the Seasonic PSU I want. I wanted Crucial RAM but all of their black kits of Ballistix are sold out across their own website and Amazon. I contacted them and they have no estimated restock date and said it was due to high demand, normally restocked within 7 days. They responded with a template email when I asked why, if they usually get more stock in 7 days, the products were out of stock for over 4 weeks. The Noctua CPU cooler was out of stock and had been for a month. The mobo was out of stock originally too but is now back in.
There seems to be smokescreens from industry contacts about this because each company would rather point toward them having an amazing product that everybody wants rather than admit that they can’t manufacture many of them, to even their usual levels.
Yes, I get that. But why are they not admitting that a large amount of it is going directly to miners? I know these companies are going to chase the money, but it’s disingenuous and it sucks for consumers, gamers and enthusiasts who they market to and harp on about wanting to offer a great product to.
Interviews like this one above rub me up the wrong way because so much of the conversation and the responses are just straight up marketing and investor speak. It’s akin to willingly reading a commercial where a brand just sits and licks its own butt like a cat, telling you how amazing it is.
It’s great, you’re amazing and I’m asking you to take my money but you can’t because that great thing you make? You don’t make enough of it. So you suck. Instead of doing interviews plugging products you don’t even have, you might be better off focusing on strengthening your supply chain.
I agree with others, pointing the finger at some sort of price-fixing conspiracy fails both Hanlon's and Occam's Razors; there is no logic in deliberately constraining supply to increase prices when demand already outstrips supply. If you withhold supply (even if it were as simple as that, and ignoring the very long production cycles of these products), your competitors will just seize the opportunity to maximise their own profits.
We had this during the last crypto bubble, people accusing AMD and Nvidia of inflating prices when it was largely down to AIBs/retailers profiteering - long-term contracts exist and there's every probability that AMD and Nvidia's own prices have not increased at all from this, and there's nothing to suggest this is not true. AIBs were quick to complain about thin margins on graphics card production but say nothing about chip price hikes? See: previously mentioned razors.
Nor can this situation be compared to commodity products like NAND or DRAM where even I raise an eyebrow when something causes a convenient write-off of wafers at a time of oversupply. And even then, it would be pointless to pull a stunt like that at a time of undersupply.
As I've said in other threads, this is a perfect storm for GPUs in particular; Christmas time release, in the middle of an unprecedented market and logistics situation caused by the pandemic, new GPUs, new CPUs, new consoles all at the same time, scalpers and bots, Brexit, and then just to add insult to injury, another crypto bubble inflates on an already tight supply situation. You can't point the finger of blame at any one of these factors, but they all contribute significantly to the situation the market is now in.
On another matter, I do wonder if the likes of AMD/Nvidia are finally considering some serious changes to retail supply of their products to get them in the hands of their intended customers, because it's getting ridiculous that hardware gets absorbed up every time there is a bit of hype around crypto, before a crash causes the second hand marked to be flooded with dirt-cheat, battered cards. The "they don't care who they sell to" statement is also nonsense; crypro is a ridiculously volatile market which makes it almost impossible to predict supply correctly and has caused both companies massive trouble and inventory write-offs. They of course appreciate the higher volume, but not at the price of second-hand dumping and inventory-writes offs every time it pops.
Edit: Regarding restocking taking longer than normal; do you not watch the news? Flights are down massively, leading to greatly reduced air cargo volumes and increased pricing.
Edit2: Blaming AMD/Nvidia for selling directly to miners. Why? They have contracts in place already, and why sell to miners who repeatedly screw them over, over intended customers who are already buying everything they make. It just fails logic again. Not to mention Navi 21 is hardly any better than Navi 10 at mining despite being far more expensive.
Last edited by watercooled; 13-01-2021 at 03:50 PM.
I presume they will detail the breakdown in their investor reports if that's what the shareholders want to know.
It does suck for gamers, but we don't have a right to be sold products in favour over other legitimate users.I know these companies are going to chase the money, but it’s disingenuous and it sucks for consumers, gamers and enthusiasts who they market to and harp on about wanting to offer a great product to.
The two aren't mutually exclusive - I would presume AMD are doing all they can to improve their supply, because in a situation where demand is outstripping supply they logically stand to gain by doing so. But that shouldn't stop their CEO from talking about other products and markets that are important for them as well.Interviews like this one above rub me up the wrong way because so much of the conversation and the responses are just straight up marketing and investor speak. It’s akin to willingly reading a commercial where a brand just sits and licks its own butt like a cat, telling you how amazing it is.
It’s great, you’re amazing and I’m asking you to take my money but you can’t because that great thing you make? You don’t make enough of it. So you suck. Instead of doing interviews plugging products you don’t even have, you might be better off focusing on strengthening your supply chain.
Pleiades (13-01-2021)
I had that too, stuff was a good price last week as well.
I ended up ordering some server ECC ram for my 3700X machine here, direct from Kingston. I've never been happy at doing paid work with consumer ram no matter how good the stuff is. The wife can have my cast offs, which I think is Ballistix but is otherwise of similar type.
Anyway, if Lisa and the like were holding back, then that must be really hitting TSMC hard. Except they seem to be doing rather nicely. If AMD order millions worth of wafers from TSMC and then sit on them, then they are losing the interest on that capital which would hurt hard, specially when the market expects new products out all the time making those older products potentially worth less.
There are also quite a few containers sat in docks not going anywhere right now.
Pleiades (13-01-2021)
Supply Chain Manegement, will currently win the market.
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