Facepalm: Nearly two years after launch, it should be easy for a graphics card distributor to order Nvidia's RTX 50-series cards in bulk. In China, however, some board makers reportedly can't supply enough of them anymore. They're now steering distributors toward the RTX 3060 and RTX 3050 instead, two cards that first hit shelves back in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Chinese supply chain outlet ChannelGate first reported the shift. According to the outlet, some manufacturers have already run out of RTX 50 stock. The ones that haven't are reportedly shipping what's left in small batches at higher prices.
Essentially, rather than leave distributors with nothing to sell, makers are pointing them toward the RTX 3060 in its 12GB and 8GB versions. The RTX 3050 makes the cut as well. So do a few AMD Radeon cards, though the report doesn't name them. Even so, ChannelGate doesn't expect any of these cards to become cheaper. If anything, the outlet thinks prices on older products could creep up a little.
As for the shortage itself, ChannelGate blames a fresh wave of demand from cryptocurrency miners. China's busy online shopping season is reportedly draining stock, too. It also doesn't help that the RTX 50 lineup was already running thin, since Nvidia reportedly cut production earlier this year amid the AI-driven memory crunch.
In fact, the RTX 3060 only came out of retirement a few months ago. 99, the same price it launched at in 2021.
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