By now, it's likely that many PC gamers and hardware enthusiasts are a little sick of waiting for the global shortage of tech to become rectified. Despite the deficit, both Nvidia and AMD saw sales increase by a large margin at the beginning of 2021 even though millions are still finding themselves kicking their heels as they wait for supplies of GPUs to become more fruitful again. However, there is a possibility that there may be some form of hope on the horizon.
According to a recent report, the prices for Nvidia and AMD products have begun to drop. At least in Europe, The report goes on to say that the cost of GPUs has reduced by up to 50% and that there is now evidence to suggest availability in on the up-and-up with sales of graphics cards increasing each month. This suggests there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and that the global shortages could be coming to an end sooner than expected.
It also seems that the US market is slowly catching up to Europe as well, with a user on Reddit creating a chart showing the trend of graphics cards prices being sold on eBay. This being the case, things may be looking up for those who have been trying to get hold of new equipment for months now.
As many are already aware, the tech world has been struggling to meet the demand of the consumer. It's not just PC hardware that's been affected, either. New-gen consoles have also felt the bite of the recession, with Nintendo President saying that a shortage of semiconductors has meant the company are going to struggle to make enough Switch consoles. Since the end of last year when the PS5 and Xbox Series generation kicked off, millions have found themselves coming away empty-handed from both online and offline retailers with only dribs and drabs of hardware becoming available, but inevitably being snatched up within moments.
Things have become so bad, especially for PC tech, that companies have begun re-releasing much older products. MSI announced earlier this month that it would be bringing back its GT 730 card, a GPU that is now seven-years-old at this stage. Nvidia have also made similar announcements, which shows how desperate the situation has become for the big tech conglomerates. However, if prices are going down and availability is up in parts of Europe, there is perhaps a silver lining and that PC users may start to see the situation improve sooner than was originally predicted.
Source: Tom's Hardware, Reddit