BY LOGAN SCHLOSSER
WEBMASTER
Hello everyone, and welcome to another one of my completely well-thought-of articles! Today we will be discussing an issue that is near and dear to all computer gamers. Now, this is an issue that has been going on ever since COVID-19 hit but was made especially worse during the release of NVIDIA and AMD’s new, top-of-the-line graphics cards. So without further ado, let’s get into it!
Before we actually talk about the issue, I probably should explain what a GPU or an NVIDIA is. A GPU is essentially the component that drives all of the graphics processing, as its name, the Graphics-Processing-Unit, suggests. You can find them as either a big 5 pound piece of metal or combined with your central processor. The majority of modern devices have their graphics cards combined with their CPU, but to gamers, this just won’t do. The big, beefy variant is mostly referred to as a dedicated graphics card/graphics card, as its only job is to focus on graphics. Essentially, gamers use these cards to play the top-of-the-line, triple-A releases of that year. Now, you may be wondering, who actually makes these cards? Well, the short answer is two main companies that have been at it for years: NVIDIA and AMD. You may have heard of AMD from their popular RYZEN CPUs, but unlike AMD, NVIDIA only produces graphics cards. So these are the two companies I will be talking about for this article. Anyways, with the introduction out of the way. Let’s continue!
To put it bluntly, the PC gaming community is essentially screwed up right now. People aren’t able to get the parts that they want to build their top-of-the-line desktop gaming machines. The main part that people can’t get their hands on however, is currently held by the graphics card. There are many different varieties, from the RTX 3080s to the RX 6800s. Now, it’s not even the matter of who can get the best card, it’s if you can even get a graphics card. You probably can guess the culprit of the situation; there is currently a HUGE silicon shortage from the pandemic. Because of so many factories closing down, companies have not had enough silicon to produce the PC parts they need. This is only the foundation for the problem, though, as I built my PC last June and I got the parts just fine, and at a normal price too!
So, another issue was the fact that AMD and NVIDIA just released their latest and greatest cards yet. These cards were meant to be game-changers of the industry, being the ultimate price to performance beast that people craved. For example, the top card from the last series, the RTX 2080TI, cost around 1200 USD. However, the newest 80s series card, the 3080, costs only 700 USD! Plus, it outperforms the RTX 2080TI by a significant margin. Safe to say, people were hyped. Then when the cards inevitably came out, all of them were either bought by scalpers, people who buy multiple of an electronic in hopes to pawn it off for a high profit, or normal gamers. Then people also realized that they needed an gaming setup during this boring quarantine, so everyone started buying graphics cards at once, essentially making cards worth double, or even triple their MSRP! For example, I bought my graphics card in June, the RTX 2060, for 300USD. Now this card is at a whopping 800USD, far exceeding its original worth.
As for the second reason, during this pandemic, people were also looking for ways to make money off of their already existing gaming PCs and hardware. Plus, it’s not like we really had anything to do. Anyways, the second huge cryptocurrency boom happened in what seemed like overnight. Now you might be thinking, “well good for them! They are using their resources well.” Well, it’s good for those people who do that, but to mine for cryptocurrency, you need a graphics card, and the more you have, the more money you need. Essentially, a gamer only needs one card, but a person who mines for crypto will always want another card. More cards equal more profit essentially.
And that’s where we are right now with the graphics card market. It’s a sad but true fate, but if you want a gaming PC, you might just have to buy a prebuilt one, as those companies have a steady stream of graphics cards coming straight from the factory. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this article about the latest PC drama! Have a good day/night/whenever you are reading this!