Rumor [Seeking Alpha] Nvidia Appears To Have A GPU Inventory Problem

[Hitman928]

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4182662-nvidia-appears-gpu-inventory-problem

Disclaimer: Author sources semi-accurate for at least some of the information but I'm not sure how much as the semi-accurate article is behind a pay wall. Also, the author is short Nvidia and long AMD so spreading bad news to hurt Nvidia stock would benefit the author.

Summary: Nvidia miscalculated how many of their consumer GPU sales recently were mining related and continued to pump out excessive amounts of chips while the mining market went from red hot to cold. That has left Nvidia with a large surplus of GPUs. This excess inventory is at least one big reason why Nvidia has delayed their next gen GPUs.

My take: Probably some truth to it but the size of the problem is probably overstated.

 

[Dribble]

Pretty certain they won't be doing a top-bottom release, it'll almost certainly be the 1170 and 1180 (or whatever they call them) that appear. Hence 1060 or lower doesn't matter as it's not getting replaced.

So you are really telling me that Nvidia have a huge unsold stock of 1070-1080Ti cards that they want to shift first, despite them having sold like hotcakes still going in/out of stock at Nvidia.com (1080Ti out of stock right now)?

 

[rchunter]

You look at newegg. Still almost every 1080ti out of stock.. Still hard to get one at a decent price. Not willing to buy one at ebay scalper prices.

 

[Samwell]

I think it's true as an educated guess. Not sure he really has sources, but doesn't matter. Mining was big till end of march. Production of cards and shipping takes 3 month. So when mining crashed, nvidia still got the cards produced in march, which are shipping at the moment. But without mining demand it can take longer to get rid of the stock. This all makes sense in combination with the Hotchips cancellation.

 

[rchunter]

I think it's true as an educated guess. Not sure he really has sources, but doesn't matter. Mining was big till end of march. Production of cards and shipping takes 3 month. So when mining crashed, nvidia still got the cards produced in march, which are shipping at the moment. But without mining demand it can take longer to get rid of the stock. This all makes sense in combination with the Hotchips cancellation.

Where's the stock? I don't see it.....

 

[jpiniero]

Where's the stock? I don't see it.....

There's plenty of stock although there is still retailer gouging going on. Remember due to the memory price increase the real MSRP isn't $699.

 

[Samwell]

Where's the stock? I don't see it.....

In my country 1080s and 1070Tis are in stock everywhere and at the same price as before the ram price increase. 1080Ti, 1060 are also at stock everywhere, but price isn't so good yet. But the reason for this seems different:

However, producers of graphics cards obviously don't want to give away their record-high profits in their entirety; and they're showing some reluctance, some "pricing memory" on their graphics cards, maintaining gross margins in the 20% area, double that of pre-mining pricing. As such, graphics card makers are again abandoning the mining boom as a source of stable revenue, looking to other solutions (such as servers, datacenter acceleration and such, DigiTimes reports in the case of TUL).

https://www.techpowerup.com/245321/...-mining-demand-in-2h18-prices-to-remain-hiked

So it seems like nvidia would like to push more gpus in the market to clear stock, but AIBs prefer to keep the higher margins at the expense of selling less.

 

[rchunter]

There's plenty of stock although there is still retailer gouging going on. Remember due to the memory price increase the real MSRP isn't $699.

Plenty of stock??
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709 601294835

I still don't see it.

 

[nitromullet]

Plenty of stock??
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709 601294835

I still don't see it.

Just because it says "view details" instead of a "add to cart" doesn't mean they are not in stock. If you click "view details" you'll see that you can add most of these cards to your cart, and they are available from newegg directly and other sellers. 1080 ti's are not hard to find...

 

[rchunter]

Just because it says "view details" instead of a "add to cart" doesn't mean they are not in stock. If you click "view details" you'll see that you can add most of these cards to your cart, and they are available from newegg directly and other sellers. 1080 ti's are not hard to find...

Yeah you are right my bad.

 

[maddie]

If this is true, and Nvidia is still deciding how to handle it, then out the window goes all those predictions for this next gen release following a predictable pattern.

Waiting for the new cards might take longer than hoped.

 

[ksec]

This is from Taiwan News channel before it being relayed back to Semi Accurate. Nvidia canceled their Hotchip talk about their new GPU. Not sure if the two event are related ( Very Likely )

 

[VirtualLarry]

Nvidia canceled their Hotchip talk about their new GPU.

Really now? They must have decided to pull back the release, and then therefore there's something to this rumor.

 

[2is]

Even if true, it doesn't matter a whole lot, at least right now. AMD is not a threat in the price or performance department in the high end

 

[BFG10K]

Still high prices with near-zero availability. Yeah, not seeing it.

 

[jpiniero]

Still high prices with near-zero availability. Yeah, not seeing it.

I think the issue is GP104 more than GP102. You can get the 1070 Ti and 1080 easily.

 

[Guru]

Why even post this fake news? One look at e-retailers and you can see that their inventory is short or lacking. Their cards are still selling like hot cakes, mining or not. It's AMD's cards that have always sold way more due to mining as they tend to perform better at that. Nvidia cards started selling to mining because of lack of AMD cards.

 

[realibrad]

Why even post this fake news? One look at e-retailers and you can see that their inventory is short or lacking. Their cards are still selling like hot cakes, mining or not. It's AMD's cards that have always sold way more due to mining as they tend to perform better at that. Nvidia cards started selling to mining because of lack of AMD cards.

Check newegg.com

I found over 20 listings that showed as active, and almost all the other listings have the ability for you to buy through newegg but with a different vendor. There are lots of options.

 

[LTC8K6]

I see quite a few 1080ti cards in stock at Newegg with a limit of 2 or 5 per customer.

There does not appear to be any shortage to me...

 

[nurturedhate]

Clicked through the first dozen 1080ti's on newegg, all are in stock at newegg and several other etailers as well.

 

[utahraptor]

If it is OEMs returning the cards that probably means they are all founders edition cards and not branded versions. I imagine it will take a substantial effort to validate the cards are new or like new and to repackage them for sale as retail vs OEM. If the story is true it may take 30-60 days before the stock is “available.”

 

[LTC8K6]

If one OEM partner had to return 300K gpus, then it stands to reason that others had to return plenty as well, yet we have not heard of this.

 

[psolord]

If Nvidia has too much stock, they are actually holding it back, in order to keep prices at check by pushing them slowly into the market. Of course they would not sell them for peanuts. Read between the lines.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Its probably completely true and given the market dynamics, its not going to be a big problem for NV. It just means its going to be a very long generation for people who are waiting for a new NV card.

 

[wanderica]

Newegg seems to have plenty of stock while nVidia's website is, and has been, consistently sold out of 1080Tis. It should be noted that all other 10 series cards sold at their website don't seem to be suffering from this issue, including the 1080 which has a couple of listings at newegg for below MSRP at the moment. You can even find a couple of OC versions at $539 after $20 rebate. All in stock with a limit of 5 per customer. It certainly points to excess stock to me.

That said, I don't think nVidia will have an issue moving cards if they really want to. Putting the lower end and middle tier cards on sale would move them quickly. I seriously doubt Nvidia would delay the 2080 launch solely due to an oversupply issue if it was ready to go. Wouldn't they stand to make more money and sell more cards from a new product launch?