Nvidia RTX 3000 shortages expected to last at least until 3Q21

The gaming GPU market is in an awkward spot right now and Nvidia seems to be catching more flak than AMD this time around. Both companies are struggling to meet demand for the desktop GPU market given the ongoing chip shortages, but Nvidia also needs to deal with the crypto miners that are snatching up whatever little card stock becomes available. Unfortunately, the forecast for the next two quarters does not look any better, as DigiTimes sources expect Nvidia's gaming GPU supply problem to last at least through Q3 2021.

Back in Q4 2020, we were hearing rumors regarding Nvidia’s plans to tap the 7 nm nodes at TSMC for some RTX 3000 Super variants. It looks like Samsung’s 8 nm nodes still have lower-than-expected yields, but seeing that TSMC is barely meeting production allocations for the 7 nm nodes, the Nvidia Super cards might get delayed to late 2020 or even 2021. It is also highly unlikely that Nvidia will green light a paper launch for any next gen GPUs this year, and this will probably apply to AMD’s RDNA 3 GPUs, as well.

Nvidia is also trying to deal with the crypto miners that are focusing on buying out the already restricted RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 stocks (even the mobile versions). Most market analysts do not see Nvidia’s announcement of the CMP HX GPU specifically designed for miners as a good move. Furthermore, Nvidia is blundering with the mining limitations imposed on the RTX 3060 cards, as it turns out that the mining throttling is only software-based and can be bypassed via custom drivers. Add to this all the allegations regarding those pre-launch sales of considerable RTX 3000 GPU stocks, and you would think that Nvidia is actually transforming into a crypto mining GPU maker.

In any case, DigiTImes claims that prices for all Nvidia RTX 3000 cards will remain well above MSRP for some time and this will help Team Green to maintain a high gross margin for the next quarters. There is some hope that the miner situation could be alleviated by the end of the next quarter. Right now, the most profitable crypto coin to mine via GPUs is Ethereum, but this crypto coin will soon convert its infrastructure to Proof of Stake, making GPUs useless. This could trigger some GPU dumps by the end of Q2 2021, and prices might revert close to MSRP by Q3 2021.

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