[ad_1]
Trying to buy a new graphics card in 2021 has proven to be an extremely frustrating experience, and a new report suggests the main reason is that cryptocurrency miners are buying huge amounts of GPUs.
According to a new report from Jon Peddie Research, 25% of GPUs sold in the first quarter of 2021 were bought by cryptocurrency miners and scalpers.
That’s a huge percentage of in-demand products that were already experiencing supply constraints due to the global chip shortage and the Covid-19 pandemic. This explains why it has been so difficult to buy a GPU, even with Nvidia releasing a constant stream of new products throughout the year, such as the recent RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti cards.
The way Jon Peddie Research found this number is that he has been tracking AIB (expansion card) sales since 1985 and noticed a 25% drop in the attachment rate earlier this year. This assumed that 25% of people who bought GPUs used them for mining.
“We calculate BIA mining usage as the difference between the normal attachment rate and the current rate,” the report says. “The assumption being that the miners have dedicated platforms and don’t buy a PC to build a mining system.”
This methodology isn’t that precise, but from what we’ve seen in the GPU market over the past year, as well as the cryptocurrency boom, it looks about right.
What can be done?
So what to do with the GPU shortage? While Nvidia has added a hash rate limiter to its new GPUs in an effort to reduce their appeal to miners by reducing their mining capabilities without affecting game performance, it hasn’t been as successful and its newer ones. GPUs have always sold out extremely quickly.
AMD, meanwhile, has done even less to deter miners from buying GPUs. In a way, you can see why. If, as Toms Hardware estimates, the sales figures are around 700,000 GPUs purchased by miners in the first quarter of this year, which equates to around $ 500 million in sales, then AMD and Nvidia may be enough. happy no matter who buys their GPUs.
It doesn’t help the rest of us though. With Prime Day deals starting to increase, it’s highly unlikely to see price drops on GPUs, which, when on sale, often exceed their usual asking price.
Buying a new PC with an included GPU is an option to get a current GPU. Either that or wait until the cryptocurrency bubble bursts and the global chip shortage ends. However, none of these are an ideal choice if you just want to get your hands on one of the best GPUs.
[ad_2]
picture credit