Nvidia GPUs could soon face stock shortages – so are we looking at price increases for GeForce graphics cards?
Nvidia's graphics cards could soon see much lower inventory levels, if a new rumor is true – a prospect that brings with it fears of GPU price increases, although hopefully not to the extent we've seen in the past.
Wccftech highlighted a report from the tech site MyDrivers claiming that industry sources in Taiwan say Nvidia's GeForce gaming GPUs will begin to experience lower supply levels from the fourth quarter of 2023.
Obviously, as with any rumor, be cautious with that report, and we're not being told which models of Nvidia graphics cards are particularly affected, although it sounds like this applies more or less across the board to consumer models.
This focuses on the Asian market as the likely hardest-hit region, but the report also notes inventory shortages in the US and Europe, where Nvidia GPUs could also become harder to find.
The expectation according to MyDrivers is that the supply of Nvidia cards could be “very limited” in the near future, worryingly, and there are reports of price increases for at least some products.
Analysis: contradictions abound?
We've seen this to some extent with the RTX 4090, of course, but that was a special case due to the ban in China (which Nvidia has circumvented with the upcoming RTX 4090 D variant, but not before a lot of vanilla 4090 stock was shipped to Chinese retailers, which had a significant impact on the global pricing of the Lovelace flagship).
The concern is that other Nvidia graphics cards, or at least some Lovelace models as mentioned, could follow in those footsteps. We're told the reason Nvidia is pulling back production and supply of GeForce GPUs is because it is prioritizing the production of chips for AI cards.
AI GPUs are where the big wins are – huge wins lately, in fact – so it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that Nvidia is about to produce a bunch of new RTX Super refreshes: three of them will reportedly launch this month, challenging for a place in our best graphics card rankings, following a reveal at CES 2024 early next week.
If production capacity is being scaled back in a meaningful way, why continue with a bunch of new launches? Well, Nvidia needs to adjust its mid-to-higher ranges with Lovelace, as it has made quite a hash of the GPUs available here – especially the RTX 4080 with its reportedly poor sales levels – so it may be considered a necessary prerequisite . move in that area. Save face against AMD in the consumer GPU market, if you will.
Also, Nvidia will be dropping the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti – they will in theory be effectively replaced by the RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4070 Ti Super – so it's a case of swapping in and out, rather than making new cards . such an.
While that has been noted, the new RTX 4070 Super will run alongside the existing RTX 4070 – the latter isn't going anywhere. Furthermore, the pricing of these new RTX Super models will be quite competitive, which again doesn't exactly fit with the idea of stock shortages and therefore upward price pressure in the near future.
Additionally, the MyDrivers article feels rather short and vague, and we're not sure how much value we'll be putting into it at this point. Let's hope that's not the case anyway, because the last thing we need is to be staring down the barrel of another round of GPU price increases from Nvidia.