Thursday, March 25th 2021
ASUS: "Lower Yields Upstream" Responsible for Lack of NVIDIA Chips
In a recent ASUS investor call from March 17th, a company representative explained the company's financial outlook and what it sees as its successes and failures in Q42020. In it, the company referenced the lack of NVIDIA graphics cards to satisfy demand as one of the major hurdles it has had to face. As the company said, "Our guess is that the gap might have been caused by lower yields upstream. As for when [Nvidia] can increase that yield is something hard for us to predict."
This is likely the clearest indicator we've had since NVIDIA's RTX 30-series launch that there is more than a demand problem for NVIDIA's Ampere graphics cards - there's a yield one as well. NVIDIA could have simply failed to predict demand for its graphics cards in wake of the recent cryptomining craze, and asome theorize a miscalculated allocation of wafers with Samsung on expectations of lower demand post-holiday season. That one doesn't make much sense, as by that time, COVID and its effects on tech market demand were already pretty clear. And while NVIDIA certainly doesn't have all available capacity at Samsung's 8 nm at its disposal, there should certainly be more available capacity for NVIDIA's RTX 30-series than say, for AMD's Navi graphics cards, which have to share the 7 nm wafers with virtually all other AMD products (from CPUs to mobile chips to enterprise solutions). The idea of lower upstream yields than would be ideal for NVIDIA does certainly come as a possible reason - a change in foundry partner comes with certain additional difficulties in adapting the design to that given processes' strengths and issues. As always, we'll just have to wait and see.
Sources:
via TechSpot, ASUS
This is likely the clearest indicator we've had since NVIDIA's RTX 30-series launch that there is more than a demand problem for NVIDIA's Ampere graphics cards - there's a yield one as well. NVIDIA could have simply failed to predict demand for its graphics cards in wake of the recent cryptomining craze, and asome theorize a miscalculated allocation of wafers with Samsung on expectations of lower demand post-holiday season. That one doesn't make much sense, as by that time, COVID and its effects on tech market demand were already pretty clear. And while NVIDIA certainly doesn't have all available capacity at Samsung's 8 nm at its disposal, there should certainly be more available capacity for NVIDIA's RTX 30-series than say, for AMD's Navi graphics cards, which have to share the 7 nm wafers with virtually all other AMD products (from CPUs to mobile chips to enterprise solutions). The idea of lower upstream yields than would be ideal for NVIDIA does certainly come as a possible reason - a change in foundry partner comes with certain additional difficulties in adapting the design to that given processes' strengths and issues. As always, we'll just have to wait and see.
42 Comments on ASUS: "Lower Yields Upstream" Responsible for Lack of NVIDIA Chips
The big picture is that there are a lot of cards on the market and in the hands of consumers. Yes, prices are wrong, and yes, availability is spotty. But if we look at financial statements - starting with Nvidia whose revenue increased considerably more than their AUP - or other indirect statistics like Steam Hardware survey they all tend to show there is a LOT of Ampere cards out there. If you are willing to pay the exorbitant prices you can mostly get cards today or in a few days (possibly with the exception of 3080 that really does not seem to stay in stock no matter the price).
Keep in mind that despite much of internet hoopla the price Nvidia sells chips to AIBs is not likely to be the cause of current retail prices.Scalpers are a thing but it is quite incorrect to say nothing has been in the stores. Even in my little backwater country, there were 3070s available for a long while for about 1000€. Right now, 3060s are available... for about 1000€. And they are being bought - fast. Hell, if I would have agreed to pay ~1100€ back in November 3080s were available. Even now there is stock fairly regularly - cards are just bought incredibly fast at stupid prices. I have also been looking at EU (and to some degree, GB) stores and the situation is pretty much the same.
Right now, there seems to be a new dip in availability but I am not looking that actively at stock any more either.
If you want to have fun (or be frustrated) you can try to catch something in stock: twitter.com/PartAlert
Twitter is actually too slow, their Discord channel is faster. Plus you essentially need all the payment and addresses stuff pre-configured so that you would have a chance to buy in that small window cards are in stock :D
Edit:
There is a very simple reason for stupid prices: 2cryptocalc.com/most-profitable-gpu
At todays prices and situation, mining Ethereum makes ~$10 on 3090, ~$8 on 3080, ~$5 on 3070/3060Ti and ~$4 on 3060. Per day. $300, $240, $150 and $120 per month.
So, you guessed right. Woohoo, you still guessed.
And to be completely honest, I just don't give a rat's a** anymore. I'll hang on to my 1060 till prices come down to sane levels again. If they don't, I can easily go IGP only, since I don't really game anymore.
Besides, if a 3070 costs 1,000 bucks and mines 5 bucks a day, then it takes approximately 7 months just to earn its price back. It's common sense that the value of cryptocurrencies will fall as quickly as they rose when they become more commonly mined and owned. Considering this, I really don't think mining is worth it unless you can get your card(s) at MSRP - which you can't.Again, Overclockers UK sold 26 Palit 3070s in the last half year. Where's the rest?
Edit: The other thing is, nearly every AIB increased their prices for nVidia graphics cards for apparently no reason. If nVidia is still maintaining launch prices for GPUs sold to AIBs, then is it simple greed on the AIBs' part? I don't think so.Not necessarily. FE cards are only sold in the US (as far as I know), and since the whole card is made in-house, their profit margin is pretty high already. Plus, maintaining relatively lower FE prices is a good way to undercut the AIBs (which are essentially competition ever since FE became a thing).
Of the remaining parties I think it's the OEMs that may be diverting GPUs towards miners. Why do I think that? Because if Nvidia was screwing us, we'd be able to buy AMD cards. And if retailers were at fault, it's unlikely all of them would be colluding with miners, there would be at least a few that would have enough stock. It could also be AIBs, there aren't that many out there to rule out a cartel deal.
To sum things up, my suspects would be OEMs, AIBs, retailers and Nvidia, in that order.
Of course, let's not forget that without the global chip shortage, Nvidia would have placed additional orders by now. But that's probably not going to happen in 2021.
For:
- nVidia's financial statements,
- miners,
- scalpers,
- Steam survey.
Against:- Actual number of actual graphics cards in the hands of actual people and on store shelves,
- no fully unlocked GPU chip anywhere in the product stack,
- lots of repurposing of different GPU variations for different segments of the product stack (GA104 for 3060 Ti, GA102-
That sounds like a solid train of thought. Although on AMD's side of things, one possible theory could be their allocation of capacity at TSMC, which I believe is mostly spent on console SOCs and Ryzen. AMD might have not anticipated their new Radeons to be very popular, so they might have underbooked their capacity at TSMC. It still doesn't explain why there is literally zero stock of Radeon graphics cards at UK stores ever since launch, so without any evidence, I'm inclined to give your suspicions credit.250/ 225).Siphoning cards at any point will result in lower quantities reaching the end user just the same.
And fully unlocked chips... Nvidia had very few of those for generations. It's a design decision they make: very complex chips with higher defects initially (thus the disabled units) that may or may not be unlocked more down the road. See the Super line of Turing cards, but this has happened before. Hell, we haven't even seen Gx100/200 in the consumer space since Maxwell (I think).