The supply shortage of NVIDIA’s RTX 30 series cards has been largely unchanged since their initial launch last month. As per NVIDIA’s execs, the situation won’t change for at least another few years. This means the Ampere shortages will continue till at least January-February, in line with what I had reported earlier.
Supply in select regions should improve from Feb next year, with the global inventory stabilizing by March. This is bad news for gamers, as they won’t be able to buy any of the latest graphics cards during this holiday season. AMD’s newly launched Radeon RX 6800 series are also facing severe shortages, although the situation may improve as the board partners launch their offerings in the coming weeks.
At the Q3 earnings call, NVIDIA CFO, Collete Kress blames the long cycle times for the supply shortages, saying that it’ll take a few more months for things to return to normal.
Given industry-wide capacity constraints and long cycle times, it may take a few more months for product availability to catch up with demand
— Colette Kress, NVIDIA CFO
NVIDIA CEO, Jensen “Black Jacket” Huang said the same thing shortly after the Ampere launch. He, however, claimed that the shortages would last till the end of the year, not extend into the first quarter of 2021.
We would appreciate shorter cycle times. We would appreciate more agile supply chains. But you know the world is constrained at the moment. And so, we just have to make the best of it.
— Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO
Although NVIDIA is quickly becoming a Data Center first company, gaming still accounts for roughly half of its revenue. If the present situation continues, it’ll mean a sizable drop in the company’s Q4 revenue and perhaps even the Q1 2021 profits.
