11/9/2022 0 Comments Graphics card shortage![]() ![]() Bitcoin mining is no longer done on a few computers in someone’s apartment industrialized operations in China and other areas where energy is cheap feature mining rigs with thousands of video cards working in tandem. Bitcoin miners have bought up huge numbers of video cards because their sophisticated GPUs are well suited to the complex calculations that mining requires. Nvidia has reportedly not gotten enough silicon wafers from Samsung’s foundry, leaving it deprived of raw materials. Across the electronics industry, from PCs to microchips for cars, increased demand, insufficient manufacturing capacity, and a pandemic-induced supply chain crunch have led to widespread delays and shortages. Still, inflated consumer expectations don’t account for everything when it comes to the video card drought, there is blame to go around. In truth, if you want to play computer games at anything less than the most eye-popping resolution and graphical detail, many second- and third-generation video cards are just fine. (The card I bought doesn’t support ray tracing, which may in part explain the salesman’s doleful concern.) It’s worth noting the irony in buying a $1,000 video card to play a $60 game like Cyberpunk, whose much-hyped launch was marred by a spate of bugs that left the game unplayable for some users. Nvidia’s RTX 30 cards, in particular, do well with ray tracing, which has become a watchword for those who want to play triple-A titles like Cyberpunk 2077 at the highest settings. The latest fixation-one that’s been pushed hard by the gaming community as well-is ray tracing, a method for lighting video games that’s being heralded as the next step in photographic realism. In order to justify the rising costs of video cards, manufacturers tout RAM speed, computational architectures, and other engineering doodads. It’s a reflection of both manufacturers’ outsize promises and consumers’ own demands. There is a kind of bourgie, call-the-manager elitism in this overheated market. (In the weeks I’ve been monitoring eBay auctions, these sketchy photo listings seem only to have proliferated-a surprising failure on eBay’s part for a marquee product category.) If you’re enough of a sap to fall for this, well, too bad. Almost invariably, the sellers then claim that they are fighting bots and scalpers-scamming the scammers-and that they don’t want human beings to bid on their items. The listings contain all of the technical information that a typical listing for a video card would have, with a small added proviso about this being a picture, not a real item. ![]() Some of the promised photos are laminated or framed others are simply JPGs that will be emailed after the auction closes. ![]() On eBay, I found dozens of listings for photographs of video cards, many of them with multiple bids, a few of them for more than $1,000 (not counting hefty shipping fees). It’s tough to find any older GTX or RTX video card for under $400 online, while new models go for anywhere from $800 to more than $2,000. Every product shortage has its shady middlemen and con artists-remember the early-pandemic hand sanitizer guy?-and it’s been no different with video cards. ![]()
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