AMD feels supply shortages will affect PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC gaming until at least 2H 2021

AMD managed to set new records in Q4 2020 despite challenges posed by the pandemic and the US-China trade war. However, the ongoing lean period of availability of CPUs and GPUs (and inflated pricing as a consequence) may continue until the end of 1H 2021.

Responding to an investor query, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said, "overall demand exceeded planning" and CPU/GPU shortages will primarily impact gaming hardware and the low-end of the PC market. Gaming products impacted include both consoles and gaming CPUs and GPUs. This will continue until production resumes at full capacity, which may take up to 2H 2021. Dr. Su felt that the higher-margin products are likely to be more readily available at retail.

As per information gained by Tom's Hardware, AMD's inventory has increased to US$1.4 billion in unsold goods. This inventory not only includes fully ready chips but also those in various stages of production and packaging. So, while AMD's increased wafer capacity at TSMC results in more chips, packaging shortages apparently still seem to affect the supply chain.

Ultimately, consoles such as the Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S are likely to be the most affected of all until 2H 2021. Whatever little stocks are being made available right now tend to be quickly lapped-up by scalpers, who sell them for a high mark-up on sites like eBay.

The situation does not currently look good for gaming CPUs and GPUs such as the new Ryzen 5000 processors, Radeon RX 6000 series, or NVIDIA's Ampere RTX 30 series either. Adding to the supply woes is the fact that global GDDR6 shortage is expected to continue well into February and may be even beyond thus affecting all NVIDIA and AMD GPUs that use this memory standard.

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