News Nvidia Taps TSMC's 5nm for RTX 40-Series GPU Architectures

[sivaseemakurthi]

Scalpers or not, high end graphics card used to be max 800$. Now msrp itself is 1500 for 3090. This wasn't the case before. Thanks to scalpers or crypto miners, GPU companies now know they can now ridiculously price their cards and there are still buyers. The real gamers for who these cards were made for before crypto mining came along are the losers now. I seriously hope Intel or some other company will disrupt the market and screw AMD/NVIDIA.

 

[Endymio]

I believe that poorer people deserve the ability to work up to buying a modern GPU ...The entire world would not be having to spend 600 dollars on an arguably already overpriced at MSRP card for entry to mid level performance.

Entry level performance is a chip with an APU, not a high-end graphics cards. These cards, and their level of performance, didn't even exist a couple years ago ... and yet you believe that the world's poor should all be entitled to one? When many of them lack even basics like sufficient food and clean water, much less electricity and an Internet connection, what exactly do you believe they're going to do with a high-end gaming rig?

 

[gamerk316]

Lol, no, I'm arguing nothing of the sort. I stating the economic definition of fair market value . The actual price of any good or service may be higher or lower than this, depending on any number of factors. If you don't understand the argument, you cannot counter it.

When I mentioned Price in that context, I was using it as "Fair Market Price" for the purposes of my argument.

Nevermind that "Fair Market Pricing" is an economic impossiblity, as it is tied directly to both Demand and Supply, which are always changing based on market conditions. No product ever has been sold at "Fair Market Price" and to use that as an argument to support current GPU prices is silly (at best) and disingenuous (at worst).

I also note you avoided addressing any of my points, specifically the one where I noted the continue availability of GPUs at their current scalper prices is an indication Prices are higher then the market would justify (Fair Market or otherwise).

Given I said exactly the opposite of this, I don't know why you would think that. I'll repeat my past statement: resellers don't magically increase supply. If they price a product closer to its actual fair market value, then they increase availability. That's a far different statement.

Semantics. As far as the MARKET is concerned, the two are equivalent. The market only cares if a product is there for purchase or not; a non-available product may as well not be produced in the first place, as far as the market is concerned.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[gamerk316]

Entry level performance is a chip with an APU, not a high-end graphics cards. These cards, and their level of performance, didn't even exist a couple years ago ... and yet you believe that the world's poor should all be entitled to one? When many of them lack even basics like sufficient food and clean water, much less electricity and an Internet connection, what exactly do you believe they're going to do with a high-end gaming rig?

That's their choice. Not yours, and certainly not others seeking to manipulate prices for their own gain.

 

[helper800]

Entry level performance is a chip with an APU, not a high-end graphics cards. These cards, and their level of performance, didn't even exist a couple years ago ... and yet you believe that the world's poor should all be entitled to one? When many of them lack even basics like sufficient food and clean water, much less electricity and an Internet connection, what exactly do you believe they're going to do with a high-end gaming rig?

I said entry to mid level performance in context to a graphics card, not graphics processing in general. These cards did exist a couple of year ago in the form of higher end prior generation cards. The ability to buy something even if you are poor is empowering. I do not need to list the many thousands of things a graphics card can do or help you do to make more money to justify my belief that poor people should at least have the opportunity to get a graphics card, old or new. You used to be able to get prior generation cards for bargain bin prices after new cards came out thus making the technology more widely available, but since you cannot get new lower end cards for reasonable prices this has made all graphics cards worth many times what they should be worth thus creating this shortage world wide, even for poor people who may not have water or food security that would love the opportunity to get a cheap 970 or 1060.

 

[helper800]

Semantics. As far as the MARKET is concerned, the two are equivalent. The market only cares if a product is there for purchase or not; a non-available product may as well not be produced in the first place, as far as the market is concerned.

Exactly, if a product is vaporware all it does is make people wish it were available, increase apatite for a product that does something similar, and then people spend more on a lesser but obtainable product with halted production and waning support. Its almost like there is a loop to what is happening here... Like, its circular, and never ending or something...

 

[larkspur]

I see a recurring fallacy in this discussion. For some reason people think that if there were no scalpers, people would be able to buy GPUs at close to MSRP. That is not true. It is an indisputable fact that there is a semi-conductor supply crisis. It is also indisputable that demand for semi-conductors is extremely high. When demand outpaces supply prices go up. That is indisputable. MSRP is merely a suggestion. A couple years ago I bought a 580 8gb for $135 brand new from Newegg. That is ~$100 less than MSRP. Why? Because supply for that card (4 years old tech at the time) was much higher than demand for that card. Back in March this year I sold my one-year-old RX 580 8gb for $425. Why? Because someone was willing to pay that much for it. That is called market value - the price at which a seller is willing to sell and a buyer is willing to pay. There is nothing 'evil' or 'immoral' about what I did. I offered a card at a price and someone agreed to it. The buyer got the exact product that we agreed upon, and I got the $$.

As much as folks would prefer not to admit it - scalpers are retailers. They buy something at a lower price and then sell it at a higher price just like every single retailer everywhere. That's why Best Buy, Newegg, Amazon, etc are in business. Scalpers, just like retailers are not hoarding cards, they are selling them as fast as they can. If there were no scalpers there would still be a shortage of cards. If there were no scalpers, the only way you could buy a new GPU would be via lottery (Newegg shuffle), standing in line at 5am in the morning (Best Buy product drops), waiting lists, or smashing 'refresh' on some retailer's website for hours every day - the same methods people are using today.

So what "value" do scalpers provide? The same "value" that a retailer provides. The ability to purchase a product at an agreed-upon marked-up price. When Newegg sells you a graphics card they acquire the product and then sell it at a higher cost than they acquired it for. That "markup" includes the price they paid, their business expenses and their desired profit margin. It's no different for a scalper - acquire the product, mark it up and sell it. So why do people pay retail prices? Why don't we all get wholesale prices? CONVENIENCE. No need to buy in bulk, or join a lottery, stand in line at 5am, or spend hours smashing refresh. You Just Buy it, lol

I'm not saying retail or scalping is some kind of wonderful thing. It is what it is. It exists because people are willing to pay for the convenience of it. If I dropped the ball and didn't get tickets to a concert with my favorite band, I can choose to pay a scalper a markup and still get tickets. That way I can still see the concert. If I choose not to pay the scalper then no concert for me. The "value" of retail is convenience, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[sstanic]

endymio, several of the key points you expose here, are only in theory. while it's so very cool that you're eloquent and smart, that just doesn't happen in reality, not as a rule, while it's obvious that there will be cases where it's exactly like you say. when EU and others introduced legal efforts against scalping, more was involved than the basic argument from economic theory you present here.

when in London, UK, you tried to buy a ticket for a grand concert, for example The Beatles' Paul McCartney, you'd see that there are many dates. maybe even 30 for such names, over several months. scalpers would then buy all of it, and it would appear on one particular website that received much hate and legal action over the years. and then performers would eventually hold their concert, with a half empty hall, because for most people tickets were far too expensive.

a 60GBP ticket would be up for sale for 1200GBP for example, and the scalpers' resale website would visually and through their technology create a false impresson that there's only one or two tickets available, so that the customer would actually think that the demand is huge, and that they have to pay 1200GBP for a McCartney ticket, instead of only 60, thinking it's their only chance to see and hear him, because, well he's old. O2 was the venue, I believe that its capacity is over 20,000.

same thing happened to me several times, for a Royal Albert Hall concert, and ATP finals in tennis, resale prices were just unbelievably high, and a lot of seats would remain empty, not just here and there. it's easy to understand why, as the graph of scalpers' profits doesn't fit into the graph of whatever interest the seller has, and obviously the buyers. many things have been tried, only one or two tickets per buyer, Wimbledon has a shuffle for example, names on the tickets etc to fight the situation. eventually legal efforts gave some fruit.

it isn't true, or real, that sellers always want the highest price, just as it isn't true that buyers always want the lowest, and it isn't true that scalpers' price will reflect the theoretical fair market value as you present it. there's huge space for discrepancy there, in any point in time, and particularly over time, as new behaviours are created.

theory is cute, with nicely rounded edges, but it isn't real.

 

[spongiemaster]

no they are not. scalper prices are in no way " fair market value ". the prices they charge, that are again 2 to 3 times msrp are a blantent rip off. plain and simple. the ones that pay those prices, to be blunt, have more money then brains.

If it was just people with more money than brains driving up prices, this shortage would not have lasted a year and a half with no end in sight. People who don't spend all their time whining about not being able to buy a GPU, have instead spent their time doing a little bit of math and realizing that if they have the cash on hand paying double or more MSRP is fine, as they can make it up mining on the side. As a gamer, if you were planning to pay about $400 for an AIB 3060, paying $800 for one on Ebay means you only need to mine long enough to cover the costs over what you were willing to pay in the first place. A current rates, that's less than 5 months of mining for a 3060. Once you've covered your costs, you can stop mining, if you're worried about reduced card reliability or you can continue mining and maybe turn a profit on the card eventually. I wouldn't call someone who pays $800 for something listed at $400 and uses it to generate $1000 over its lifetime as having more money than brains.

 

[husker]

Of course. That was implicit in my original statement. The point is that enough businesses and individuals now accept crypto that it does have value as a medium of exchange, even were it not freely convertible into fiat currency.

Endymio: With all due respect you complain that ItsMystic is just nitpicking your point and that crypto is technically not a "fiat currency" backed by a government but functions like one. Yet you yourself nitpicked my point when I said crypto is worth money and you said no, it is money. Well then we seem to agree that it is, in fact, not a currency but only works like currency. Hence my comment that it is worth money meaning that it can be exchanged for currency but it is not itself a currency. If my use of the word "money" instead of currency is the issue, then I defer. I have no prejudice against crypto, I just happen to believe it is a very well organized, smooth running, world wide, reasonably secure block-chain barter system on steroids. Since it is not backed by any government, it is worth only what the going market rate is. Stocks are not money, but they are worth money. Other than the technology involved, it is no different from a scenario where I take that Ferrari 488 Spyder in exchange for my rare beanie baby collection.

 

[sstanic]

larkspur, one of the key behaviours of scalpers is hoarding. a person with a stock of 200 graphics cards will not release them to the market at the same time. same thing happens when nike or some fashion brand make just 5 pairs of shoes, and stick a high price. that is basic management of luxury goods, artificially limiting supply, and I'm not even French

what you'll see instead is "only one available" on the ebay page, with a price higher than in a "200 available" situation.

also, when nvidia makes more profit, and uses the eventual shortage well, that money is then put into further development of products, better employees, experts, science etc, and buyers do get something in return, eventually. but when scalpers get that same profit, buyers get more or less nothing in return.

 

[helper800]

I see a recurring fallacy in this discussion. For some reason people think that if there were no scalpers, people would be able to buy GPUs at close to MSRP. That is not true. It is an indisputable fact that there is a semi-conductor supply crisis. It is also indisputable that demand for semi-conductors is extremely high. When demand outpaces supply prices go up. That is indisputable. MSRP is merely a suggestion. A couple years ago I bought a 580 8gb for $135 brand new from Newegg. That is ~$100 less than MSRP. Why? Because supply for that card (4 years old tech at the time) was much higher than demand for that card. Back in March this year I sold my one-year-old RX 580 8gb for $425. Why? Because someone was willing to pay that much for it. That is called market value - the price at which a seller is willing to sell and a buyer is willing to pay. There is nothing 'evil' or 'immoral' about what I did. I offered a card at a price and someone agreed to it. The buyer got the exact product that we agreed upon, and I got the $$.

As much as folks would prefer not to admit it - scalpers are retailers. They buy something at a lower price and then sell it at a higher price just like every single retailer everywhere. That's why Best Buy, Newegg, Amazon, etc are in business. Scalpers, just like retailers are not hoarding cards, they are selling them as fast as they can. If there were no scalpers there would still be a shortage of cards. If there were no scalpers, the only way you could buy a new GPU would be via lottery (Newegg shuffle), standing in line at 5am in the morning (Best Buy product drops), waiting lists, or smashing 'refresh' on some retailer's website for hours every day - the same methods people are using today.

So what "value" do scalpers provide? The same "value" that a retailer provides. The ability to purchase a product at an agreed-upon marked-up price. When Newegg sells you a graphics card they acquire the product and then sell it at a higher cost than they acquired it for. That "markup" includes the price they paid, their business expenses and their desired profit margin. It's no different for a scalper - acquire the product, mark it up and sell it. So why do people pay retail prices? Why don't we all get wholesale prices? CONVENIENCE. No need to buy in bulk, or join a lottery, stand in line at 5am, or spend hours smashing refresh. You Just Buy it, lol

I'm not saying retail or scalping is some kind of wonderful thing. It is what it is. It exists because people are willing to pay for the convenience of it. If I dropped the ball and didn't get tickets to a concert with my favorite band, I can choose to pay a scalper a markup and still get tickets. That way I can still see the concert. If I choose not to pay the scalper then no concert for me. The "value" of retail is convenience, nothing more, nothing less.

The difference is that scalpers have an "in" on the product over normal consumers thus creating a market that was not intended. The next difference is that individuals are clearly greedier than even Bestbuy or otherwise as their markups are based on whim, perceived value of their time, what others have listed it for which is then based on their whim or otherwise. To your original point, the same consumer that would buy a scalped product for 700 dollars would have much preferred to get it for 300-400 at a retailer. Obviously this means no scalper = less cost on the consumer, whereas you said if there were no scalpers the prices would still be the same. Somebody would obviously have gotten the card cheaper if there were no scalpers.

 

[waltc3]

If there is no change in quantity and price, it really doesn't much matter what nVidia or AMD announce. The GPU market is a farce at the moment, imo.

 

[helper800]

If it was just people with more money than brains driving up prices, this shortage would not have lasted a year and a half with no end in sight. People who don't spend all their time whining about not being able to buy a GPU, have instead spent their time doing a little bit of math and realizing that if they have the cash on hand paying double or more MSRP is fine, as they can make it up mining on the side. As a gamer, if you were planning to pay about $400 for an AIB 3060, paying $800 for one on Ebay means you only need to mine long enough to cover the costs over what you were willing to pay in the first place. A current rates, that's less than 5 months of mining for a 3060. Once you've covered your costs, you can stop mining, if you're worried about reduced card reliability or you can continue mining and maybe turn a profit on the card eventually. I wouldn't call someone who pays $800 for something listed at $400 and uses it to generate $1000 over its lifetime as having more money than brains.

No brained people would surly pay double for a card, then recoup their monetary cost differential via mining at the behest and cost of future generations, voiding their warranty, shortening the life of their card by 70%, and creating e-waste because nobody with a brain buys an old mined on card 2-3 years after it comes out. This is also disregarding any actual controversy of the value in the e-coin industry to begin with.

 

[larkspur]

larkspur, one of the key behaviours of scalpers is hoarding. a person with a stock of 200 graphics cards will not release them to the market at the same time. same thing happens when nike or some fashion brand make just 5 pairs of shoes, and stick a high price. that is basic management of luxury goods, artificially limiting supply, and I'm not even French

So you think that there are warehouses packed with cards that are easily selling for 200-300% markups? That makes zero business sense - unsold inventory is a liability. Do you deny that there is a semiconductor shortage? Do you deny that demand is completely outstripping supply? If there are plenty of cards available why can't Newegg get them? Why can't Best Buy get them?

What you are suggesting is that scalpers are 1) More sophisticated than the top retailers in the world 2) That there is a conspiracy somewhere where AiB makers are selling mostly to scalpers while only giving the top retailers a tiny portion of their product 3) That scalpers are actually super-rich billionaires that have more buying power than the top retailers in the world. None of those is true.

 

[Wolfshadw]

@larkspur - While I agree with most of what you are saying you are missing one point. There IS a difference between a retailer and a scalper. The retailer has a company image to uphold.

-Wolf sends

 

[spongiemaster]

If there is no change in quantity and price, it really doesn't much matter what nVidia or AMD announce. The GPU market is a farce at the moment, imo.

4000 series would be produced on a new process which would not decrease the production of older nodes. If Nvidia chose to maintain production levels for 3000 cards (not likely), then all 4000 series production would be increased capacity.

 

[larkspur]

Somebody would obviously have gotten the card cheaper if there were no scalpers.

This totally depends on what their time is worth. If you spend hours waiting for a product drop at Best Buy to get it cheaper, it depends on how much you value your time. Retail exists because of convenience. I could go to every store in my town looking for the best price on chuck steak. I would eventually find the best priced chuck steak available - but how much time did I spend searching? Was it ultimately worth it?

 

[helper800]

So you think that there are warehouses packed with cards that are easily selling for 200-300% markups? That makes zero business sense - unsold inventory is a liability. Do you deny that there is a semiconductor shortage? Do you deny that demand is completely outstripping supply? If there are plenty of cards available why can't Newegg get them? Why can't Best Buy get them?

What you are suggesting is that scalpers are 1) More sophisticated than the top retailers in the world 2) That there is a conspiracy somewhere where AiB makers are selling mostly to scalpers while only giving the top retailers a tiny portion of their product 3) That scalpers are actually super-rich billionaires that have more buying power than the top retailers in the world. None of those is true.

His point was that individuals that have some sort of "in" on the supply or cards through a retailer primed for scalping. Hoarding for a scalper is not in the 100's of cards, but 10's at most. People are not businesses and therefore do not think like them either. They do not see a bunch of product as a liability, they are blinded by their greed.

 

[helper800]

This totally depends on what their time is worth. If you spend hours waiting for a product drop at Best Buy to get it cheaper, it depends on how much you value your time. Retail exists because of convenience. I could go to every store in my town looking for the best price on chuck steak. I would eventually find the best priced chuck steak available - but how much time did I spend searching? Was it ultimately worth it?

No, it is a function of numbers. No scalpers = no scalper prices and since 300 is 400 less than 700 that means someone who needs one in a world without scalpers got the card for less. Just because a task is worth less to you in time because of how much money you make does not erase the principle. If all people cared about was money over their principles this world would have been much different.

 

[sstanic]

@larkspur as I wrote already, I'll repeat - I don't know what's the situation in NA or USA, but I do know that for some time already all large retailers in EU have a nice and constant inventory of cards at ~2x MSRP, and it seems that others like me just aren't buying them. whether they are waiting for the holiday season to pass, I don't know. maybe they want the AIB partners to give them a better price, and AIB partners in turn want the same from nvidia or AMD, I don't know.

my comment was just regarding what it says, hoarding and artificially creating scarcity or the impression of scarcity over time, and doesn't imply other unconnected statements, that you mention I'm suggesting. I'm not suggesting anything, I wrote precisely what I wrote, and that's what I meant.

well, if you read the posts, I did genuinely ask whether there is a short supply of 3080s over 14 months didn't I? and while there obviously is a semiconductor shortage, that also has its dynamic, nvidia for example is a market player who, like apple, can easily pay more than all others for any supply they need, so short lasting shortages yes, but not over 14 months. car industry is in a very different situation for example.

also most scalpers will have a very good idea that a RTX 3000 card can be sold at any point in time over at least a year and a half, and still easily over the price they paid for it. they don't have an incentive to get rid of them as quickly as they can. they bought them with bots, software that helps find and buy stock, not by clicking for a card, of five, like I would. while I don't have a clue how many cards a scalper would have, I don't underestimate people, and I'd think hundreds easily if they can get their hands on them. even more if they can.

 

[larkspur]

@larkspur - While I agree with most of what you are saying you are missing one point. There IS a difference between a retailer and a scalper. The retailer has a company image to uphold.

-Wolf sends

Yes absolutely. They want people to come to their store (online or brick&mortar) and spend money. The Newegg shuffle is an advertising scheme - Newegg gets advertising all over the place including right here on these forums as a result of selling a few cards a week for a smaller markup than they could. People hear about them, visit their website and often buy things there even if they didn't win the shuffle. Best Buy announces product drops and gets people lining up outside their stores. How many of those end up buying something else when the product runs out? These are clever ways of getting cheap advertising. I could argue that the value of such advertising far exceeds the value of Newegg/Best Buy simply marking up those products to better reflect what people would actually pay for the products in the shuffle/drops. This is because most retailers have diverse product lineups whereas scalpers tend to be more specialized.

Imagine a retailer who only sold graphics cards... how could they possibly stay in business these days when they can only get a few cards a week? Their only choice is to mark up those cards to market - the same thing scalpers do. Newegg sells all kinds of things, they aren't going out of business because they can only sell a few cards in a week. Instead they cleverly attract customers by using the high-demand for GPUs as an advertising scheme through the Newegg shuffle. Very clever.

 

[Eximo]

Scalpers or not, high end graphics card used to be max 800$. Now msrp itself is 1500 for 3090. This wasn't the case before. Thanks to scalpers or crypto miners, GPU companies now know they can now ridiculously price their cards and there are still buyers. The real gamers for who these cards were made for before crypto mining came along are the losers now. I seriously hope Intel or some other company will disrupt the market and screw AMD/NVIDIA.

Sort of, if you go back far enough, and adjust for inflation, $800 isn't new. The Geforce 2 Ultra launched at $500, in the year 2000. That is just under $800 today. Subsequent high end cards started going down in price as ATI and Nvidia duked it out.

We went through an interesting time where GPU prices stayed relatively flat while inflation increased. Thus the great rise in PC gaming in mid 2000s until around 2016.

2003 Geforce FX 5600 $200 (~$300) ~13 GFlops
2007 Geforce 8600 GT $200 (~$260) ~76 GFlops
2008 Geforce GTX 260 $300 (~$375) ~550 GFlops (Really closer to $270, it had fierce competition from AMD at the time, launched at $400)
2010 Geforce GTX 460 $200 (~$275) ~1 TFlop
2012 Geforce GTX 660 $230 (~$270) ~2 TFlops
2013 Geforce GTX 760 $250 (~$290) ~2.2TFlops
2015 Geforce GTX 960 $200 (~$227) ~2.4 TFlops
2016 Geforce GTX 1060 $250 (~$280) ~4 TFlops
(Gets a little muddy here, because of the Super models and RTX, and multiple revisions of the RTX cards at different launch prices)
2019 Geforce GTX 1660 $220 (~$230) ~4.3T Flops
2019 Geforce GTX 1660 Super $230 (~$240) ~5 TFlops
2019 Geforce RTX 2060 $350 ~5.2 TFlops (The KO launched at $300 a year later)
2021 Geforce RTX 3060 $329 (lol) ~9.4 TFlops

We all just got really used to cheap mid-range graphics cards, and now they just don't exist, which is why the RTX2060 is back in production.

 

[larkspur]

No, it is a function of numbers. No scalpers = no scalper prices and since 300 is 400 less than 700 that means someone who needs one in a world without scalpers got the card for less. Just because a task is worth less to you in time because of how much money you make does not erase the principle. If all people cared about was money over their principles this world would have been much different.

If I could go into Best Buy and get a RTX 3xxx series (or AMD 5xxx or 6xxx) GPU I would. But I can't - they have no stock. ZERO stock. That is not because the scalpers bought all of BB's stock - BB has in-store limits. It is because BB can't get enough cards to have stock. That is because there is not enough supply and too much demand. Best Buy does not charge "scalper prices". BB simply cannot get enough stock from its suppliers.

So what can I do if I want to buy a GPU at a 'reasonable price'? 1) Join Newegg lottery 2) Wait for product drop from BB (stand in line) 3) Hope I get lucky on Amazon by mashing refresh? 4) Join a waiting list? 5) Buy a pre-built and "shuck" that GPU. All of those take time/effort. Hitting "Buy it Now" on Ebay is easy. And No - I would never pay these ridiculous prices that scalpers are charging on Ebay. But there are people who are willing to pay for the convenience of not having to do 1-5 above. That is why they are willing to pay those prices.

 

[larkspur]

@larkspur as I wrote already, I'll repeat - I don't know what's the situation in NA or USA, but I do know that for some time already all large retailers in EU have a nice and constant inventory of cards at ~2x MSRP, and it seems that others like me just aren't buying them. whether they are waiting for the holiday season to pass, I don't know. maybe they want the AIB partners to give them a better price, and AIB partners in turn want the same from nvidia or AMD, I don't know.

my comment was just regarding what it says, hoarding and artificially creating scarcity or the impression of scarcity over time, and doesn't imply other unconnected statements, that you mention I'm suggesting. I'm not suggesting anything, I wrote precisely what I wrote, and that's what I meant.

So you are saying that the large retailers in the EU have plenty of stock but are charging 2x MSRP? If that's the case then they are marking up to what they believe is the most profitable price. It sounds like they are basically scalpers.

Well that is not the case in the US. Large retailers do not have constant stock - they get small drops of stock that sell out within minutes/hours. There does not appear to be any conspiracy here with our big retailers in hoarding cards to artificially inflate the market value. And if scalpers are that sophisticated - e.g. able to buy huge quantity and hoard it, I'd love to see any proof of this.