7926

Kobe quake in the 90s made RAM hyper expensive. Ounce per ounce a megabyte was more than cocaine.

This current shortage is unprecedented, though. Pandemic sent demand skyrocketing for devices. Even automakers are having severe shortages of processors needed for their cars.

7927

Not only that, but these were big upgrades. To use myself as an example, I skipped the 2000 series nvidia cards and replaced an OLD processor (i2500k).i think many people decided they were going to upgrade to Zen3 long before they came out.

7928

I did build a new high-end Zen 3 system with a 3080 but I had to be SERIOUSLY hardcore to get the parts and it took many weeks.

7929

Oh I recall that. While that was a PC part shortage it’s not even remotely close to this. I have a 3 month old PC that has appreciated in value 40%. If I though I could actually get a replacement in a couple months I would flip it but I literally see no end in sight. This has never happened before.

7930

I believe that the chip market is prone to this sort of thing as well because supply is very inelastic. It takes a long time and a lot of money to set up a chip fab, so it’s not like the manufacturers can say “Demand is up, let’s bring a whole new fab online in the next 90 days!” They might try to build more capacity if they think the demand spike is long term. If they think it’s driven by a short term event then they will just shrug and sell all the product and go back to planning around their long term forecasts.

7931

Definitely. I waited 6 months for the New nvidia cards, debated waiting on new AMD cpus but after witnessing the GPU shortage I said the hell with that and pulled the trigger on a custom build with stuff in stock.

7932

It was certainly a combination of events that lead to this. Pandemic being the biggest but not the only. Very much a perfect storm. The upgrades were the best in couple gens so demand was gonna be high, 2 new console launches, intel wetting the bed so everyone trying to use 1 semiconductor in TSM for everything from phones to cpu to consoles. A pandemic keeping everyone at home and stunting production while souring an already unprecedented demand . Than the govt. gave everyone $1800 in cash to help jump start the economy.

Yea, pretty confident in the "this has never happened before " after typing all that up :)

7933

It definitely hasn’t happened before, even if your discount the pandemic and stimulus payments. I’ve been building computers for over 20 years.

7934

I just ordered a new pc and the estimate is March and I was actually surprised to see that it would be that soon since I configured it with a 5600x.

Everything still sucks.

7935

You forgot digital fake currencies going loco.

7936

5600X/5800X were never super difficult to get. Only 5900X/5950X are hard to buy.

When you think about it, AMD can either put one 6-core CCD in a 5600X or two in a 5900X. 5600X sells for $299, 5900X for $549. The 5900X needs interconnects, extra validation, etc, too. Keep in mind that AMD is supply constrained by TSMC, they are dedicating most of their capacity to Xbox and PS5.

7937

I mean, I guess you can find some but most listings I found were sold out or marked up around $100 or more.

I already lucked out getting a ps5 and a 3070,so I felt like waiting a month for the new pc was totally reasonable, but years ago that would never happen.

7938

Today was “3070 day” at the local Microcenter, for ONLY $750 (MSI Gaming X Trio). That’s a practical steal compared to the higher-end prices despite it being significantly above original retail.

Still waiting.

7939

That card has gone up in price more than some of the other 3070s. Wonder why.

7940

Yeah exactly. It took three freaking months of daily, repetitive, stressful & frustrating effort to get the items I wanted (AMD 5900x, Nvidia 3080, PS5). I really hope it’s done for a while & the shortages end.

7941

Well it’s done for us, anyway! I don’t expect shortages to end on GPUs or 5900X/5950X for awhile yet. XSX/PS5 availability will rapidly improve; they’re the reason why it’s so hard to get Zen3.

7942

I paid $370 for a 5600x to avoid any kind of hassle. I don’t think there’ll be a matching 3070 any time soon though.

Although checking eBay the 2080s (which I have) seems to be fetching nearly $700, so the $800 3070 doesn’t seem so bad suddenly. Hmm :)

7943

That’s one of them. This is NOT the first time we’ve had shortages, and it wasn’t even that long ago. Some of the memories around here seem just a tad dusty. Keeping in mind if you relied on the people who don’t really care how much anything costs or the ones that actually have their cards, sure they could shrug and say no big deal, they don’t why anyone thought it was a big deal then… heh, perspective.

7944

It wasn’t a big deal then. Prices were higher, literally doubled for RAM a couple years ago, but you could still buy RAM from Newegg or Amazon. And RAM wasn’t that expensive anyway. This was a bummer, but it wasn’t a monster bummer.

The situation today is different for two reasons. First, you simply cannot buy these components outside scalpers. Second, Zen 3 and the 30-series are both really great, coming after several years of crappy CPUs and GPUs, and lots of people held off upgrading.

7945

Well clearly you didn’t read the article that addresses HDD and not…, well, RAM at all.