Computers & Electronics

No Price Relief on GPU's Until Q3!

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Deal Addict
Jun 15, 2006
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No Price Relief on GPU's Until Q3!

This is according to one of the Buying Managers at Massdrop, who addressed some of the complaints over recent GPU drops where the prices exceeded MSRP. Original link here.


B.Hutch
Buying Manager

Howdy Everyone,

I can not speak for other retailers out there but Massdrop is not tricking anyone here and certainly not jacking up the prices and we would never do that. We are community first and always will be.

NVIDIA was here at Massdrop HQ a couple of weeks ago re-confirming what we already know. There is a couple of reason why there is a shortage and also such a high demand of cards.

First the shortage.
All new cell phones coming out by Apple and Samsung (and others) last year started using the same memory as graphics cards. Apple and Samsung are willing to pay more for this memory to make sure they get it first and all of it that they need. This has created a shortage of memory for the much smaller companies like MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, and EVGA to make graphics cards.

Next the demand
This is obvious as the mining craze thats been going on has created a huge demand in the market as miners are goblin up just about every card available on earth.

These two things combined has just made it a tough time for any system builder out there that just wants a card or two for their rig.

While NVIDIA was here they also let us know that the pricing in the market will continue to go up through Q3 of this year most likely before we start seeing any type of relief. So, unfortunately the end to this is not right around the corner and we have not seen the worst of it yet.

Let me finish by telling everyone on Massdrop this. I will continue to list graphics cards that I can for the community if I am able to offer a competitive price. Also, as I have mentioned in other graphics cards drops we are selling this for right above our cost just barely covering back end expenses.

Why should Massdrop offer these cards above MSRP? Well, there are still customers who want to build computers now and not wait 6, 9, 12 months for the market to stabilize. So as long as I can bring them a better deal than what is currently available I will continue to do so. That being said MSRP is kind of out the window at this point so keep your eye on market price VS Massdrop as you will not see any cards out there anywhere close to MSRP for a while to come.
5 replies
Deal Fanatic
Apr 5, 2016
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Calgary/Vancouver
Didn't know about apple and Samsung using the same memory so that's good info. That'll pretty much guarantee that this shortage is here to stay for a while which sucks but this also means manufacturers will ramp up supply due to apple and Samsung contracts. Time to buy memory companies.
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Oct 9, 2010
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The memory thing seems odd; why would Samsung/Apple be willing to pay more? Cards could be increased $100 easily and people would still buy them; Apple/Samsung could not do that.

Seems like we need some new memory fabs to open up; i wonder why it hasn't happened, if there's such a shortage.
One who is offended by truth, has no place among those who seek wisdom.
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Nov 17, 2004
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ChubChub wrote: The memory thing seems odd; why would Samsung/Apple be willing to pay more? Cards could be increased $100 easily and people would still buy them; Apple/Samsung could not do that.

Seems like we need some new memory fabs to open up; i wonder why it hasn't happened, if there's such a shortage.
My guess is that very few companies expose themselves to the volatility of spot memory pricing, most lock in a contract for long term pricing. Most of the memory stock goes towards satisfying the contracts and are not sold at the spot memory prices. Now if contracts expire then maybe AMD and Nvidia get their chance to sign a new long term contract for more memory, but no buyer wants to commit to long term pricing when the prices are trending up so much upwards as they could be left with having to contractually buy lots of memory for a long time at high prices even when the market gets significantly cheaper.
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Oct 9, 2010
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toalan wrote: My guess is that very few companies expose themselves to the volatility of spot memory pricing, most lock in a contract for long term pricing. Most of the memory stock goes towards satisfying the contracts and are not sold at the spot memory prices. Now if contracts expire then maybe AMD and Nvidia get their chance to sign a new long term contract for more memory, but no buyer wants to commit to long term pricing when the prices are trending up so much upwards as they could be left with having to contractually buy lots of memory for a long time at high prices even when the market gets significantly cheaper.
That seems like a pretty obvious/likely answer I completely didn't think of; thanks!
One who is offended by truth, has no place among those who seek wisdom.

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