• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Am I the only one dreading 2021 hardware availability, pricing, etc.?

Do you think you'll be able to buy the hardware for any planned upgrades in 2021?

  • Of course, I don't expect any notable price or availability issues

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • Yes, but at raised prices and a bit of luck finding stock

    Votes: 9 11.4%
  • Yes, but at raised prices

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • Yes, but only by obsessively monitoring stocks

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • Maybe, but I really can't tell at this point

    Votes: 14 17.7%
  • No, due to pricing

    Votes: 3 3.8%
  • No, due to availability

    Votes: 4 5.1%
  • No, pricing, availability, Covid-19 and everything else has made upgrades highly unlikely for me

    Votes: 18 22.8%
  • No upgrades planned, thankfully

    Votes: 23 29.1%

  • Total voters
    79
In my specific case, my planned upgrades for 2021-2022 are CPU, its cooler, RAM and GPU.

The one that I'm likely to do pretty soon is RAM upgrade, either go to 24 or 32 GB of RAM, since I've been uncomfortably close to hitting the 16 GB ceiling I currently have way too often, mostly because of VMs and other stuff I sometimes run in the background, and the prices for 8 or 16 GB sticks are quite affordable still.

CPU, I'm thinking of going for a 5900X. No need for more, and the 5800X's single CCD heats up too much to consider it.

CPU cooler, for obvious reasons. Hats off to AMD anyways for trying to deliver a half-decent air cooler with their products.

GPU... Well, Polaris can't shine forever, so either it will be replaced or it will go out like a red giant star. Since I do FAH, I'll probably have Nvidia in my sights, but it is still up to price.

Availability is probably not going to be a problem, regardless of the US/EU situation on that. Pricing is another beast entirely and the reason why I'm going to tackle the upgrades over the next two years.
 
Maybe it depends on which market you're looking at. In EU it's not a good situation. There are less models available, and prices have gone up.
Other SKU's could have been even cheaper a year ago, but I'm not going to track that, obviously..
These are just a few models, and I'm sure there are others that contradict this as I obviously haven't checked all. :)



1660: 1 out of 31 SKU's in stock, starting at 290EUR, same SKU a year ago: 205EUR
View attachment 182674
_________________________________________________________________________________________

1660 TI: 1 out of 25 SKU's in stock, starting at 360EUR, same SKU a year ago: 270EUR

View attachment 182675
_________________________________________________________________________________________

2060: 9 out of 38 SKU's in stock, starting at 390EUR, same SKU a year ago: 330EUR
View attachment 182677
_________________________________________________________________________________________

570: 8 out of 22 SKU's in stock, starting at 194EUR, same SKU a year ago: 170EUR
View attachment 182678
_________________________________________________________________________________________

5600 XT: 9 out of 18 SKU's in stock, starting at 380EUR, same SKU a year ago: 300EUR (it was new at that point, stable lowest was 270EUR)
View attachment 182682
_________________________________________________________________________________________

5700 XT: 1 out of 31 SKU's in stock, starting at 590EUR, same SKU a year ago: 430EUR
View attachment 182673
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Looking beyond a year doesn't make much difference, that 1660 TI broke the 300EUR mark for the first time after 22 months.
View attachment 182686

Edit: Forgot about 1660 Super. 9 out of 40 SKU's available. Price has gone from 245EUR at start, via 200, to 260.
2060 Super: 1 out of 13 SKU's available, from 385EUR to 550 in a year.

I honestly have no idea which are EOL..

Price only goes up because they're sold at such prices, and as long as people do this, product will remain scarce and the price will remain inflated. This can endure for years if we choose to make it so or even if we don't, look at RAM for example. In the end we are the ones determining what price we accept. At the same time, we're more and more people on a planet with limited space and resources. Its plausible more of this will happen and if its not just inflation but actual shortage of goods, this will turn entire markets upside down and enforce change in another way. I've said it before... but making big ass RT capable GPUs is for example one of the first things that'll go the way of the dodo - after all, if you can only produce for the happy few of the happy few, your market is gone, no dev builds multi million dollar games for 1% especially for marketing-inflated replacements that offer marginal improvement at high expense.

The only solution is better availability. So we can plan all we want... if its not in stock or badly so, you're screwed. We can be all grumpy about that, or move on. Either way, it goes to show planning ahead is never really that great a thing to do for items that you don't actually need.

But I think availability won't be an issue, we're just in between nodes now and that on top of pandemic and overall die size increases just puts major pressure on everything and its a surprise so much still gets produced IMO, but in Asia much of that is going back to full capacity soon. Additionally, in the longer run, China being the factory of the globe is going to shift and get redivided across continents - all signs point in that direction. Both the US and EU are feeling the pressure because they've now seen how dependant they are.

Wait... Is this planning ahead... ? Hmmmm :D
 
Maybe it depends on which market you're looking at. In EU it's not a good situation. There are less models available, and prices have gone up.
Other SKU's could have been even cheaper a year ago, but I'm not going to track that, obviously..
These are just a few models, and I'm sure there are others that contradict this as I obviously haven't checked all. :)



1660: 1 out of 31 SKU's in stock, starting at 290EUR, same SKU a year ago: 205EUR
View attachment 182674
_________________________________________________________________________________________

1660 TI: 1 out of 25 SKU's in stock, starting at 360EUR, same SKU a year ago: 270EUR

View attachment 182675
_________________________________________________________________________________________

2060: 9 out of 38 SKU's in stock, starting at 390EUR, same SKU a year ago: 330EUR
View attachment 182677
_________________________________________________________________________________________

570: 8 out of 22 SKU's in stock, starting at 194EUR, same SKU a year ago: 170EUR
View attachment 182678
_________________________________________________________________________________________

5600 XT: 9 out of 18 SKU's in stock, starting at 380EUR, same SKU a year ago: 300EUR (it was new at that point, stable lowest was 270EUR)
View attachment 182682
_________________________________________________________________________________________

5700 XT: 1 out of 31 SKU's in stock, starting at 590EUR, same SKU a year ago: 430EUR
View attachment 182673
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Looking beyond a year doesn't make much difference, that 1660 TI broke the 300EUR mark for the first time after 22 months.
View attachment 182686

Edit: Forgot about 1660 Super. 9 out of 40 SKU's available. Price has gone from 245EUR at start, via 200, to 260.
2060 Super: 1 out of 13 SKU's available, from 385EUR to 550 in a year.

I honestly have no idea which are EOL..
I am one of the 2 that said you will need to monitor websites. The new 3000 and 6000 GPUs are very compelling (It is crazy that all of them are faster than a 2080TI) but their lack of availability means that I have seen the RX 580 jump from $279 to $319.99 CAD as the lowest price for new decent cards.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SL2
I am one of the 2 that said you will need to monitor websites. The new 3000 and 6000 GPUs are very compelling (It is crazy that all of them are faster than a 2080TI) but their lack of availability means that I have seen the RX 580 jump from $279 to $319.99 CAD as the lowest price for new decent cards.
Is it REALLY crazy they're all faster than last gen which was really quite a lazy one? The 2080ti for its die size was just bonkers on 12nm, I think tháts the crazy part. Nvidia chose an inferior node, slapped a 1500 price tag on it and called it a day. And everyone who bought one saw the fastest, by FAR, devaluation of a graphics card in the history of graphics cards, well, at least since ATI got bought.

Perspective on these things is best gained with a birds eye view over multiple generations. The fact is, Nvidia will not be releasing a much faster Ampere GPU anymore so is the leap really so big or was Turing just quite shit? They're still selling a heavily cut down, low VRAM x102 die at 700+. Is it really that cheap for what it is? Its certainly not a BAD deal. But great and 'omg we can't miss out' territory? I beg to differ.
 
And everyone who bought one saw the fastest, by FAR, devaluation of a graphics card in the history of graphics cards, well, at least since ATI got bought.
There were Titans before it and now there is 3090. 2080Ti was not that unique of a thing for its price and time of devaluation.
 
Hi,
Too rich for my blood but then again 3080ti hasn't been released yet but I'm sure it like all the rest and announced 2021 price increases planned gpu/... upgrades not likely at all this year.
Just have to ride till current hardware drops dead.

I bought a evga b-stock 980ti for 150.us a while back for a third rig waiting for 30 series to drop glad I did lol


Keep an eye on BestBuy FE RTX3000, there have been regular shipments for a month noe
 
Is it REALLY crazy they're all faster than last gen which was really quite a lazy one? The 2080ti for its die size was just bonkers on 12nm, I think tháts the crazy part. Nvidia chose an inferior node, slapped a 1500 price tag on it and called it a day. And everyone who bought one saw the fastest, by FAR, devaluation of a graphics card in the history of graphics cards, well, at least since ATI got bought.

Perspective on these things is best gained with a birds eye view over multiple generations. The fact is, Nvidia will not be releasing a much faster Ampere GPU anymore so is the leap really so big or was Turing just quite shit? They're still selling a heavily cut down, low VRAM x102 die at 700+. Is it really that cheap for what it is? Its certainly not a BAD deal. But great and 'omg we can't miss out' territory? I beg to differ.
Price to performance is a totally different argument and indeed the architecture are moot as well. I know what you are saying though we have been swindled by Nvidia with what they did to GPU pricing. As compelling as the performance is you need $1000 (WTF?) Canadian to get into it. The 3090 is basically $3000 (????) and I remember when I was picking up a part about a month ago the person in front of me in line had driven from Barrie to Mississauga (About Erie PA to Pittsburgh PA) to get one. That speaks to me of the absolutely ridiculous level that demand is at now. The return of crypto to the mainstream mind share though will definitely put GPU prices into the stratosphere. Even if Bitcoin works better with ASIC solutions and ETH is best for that. There will be plenty of people trying to make "free" money by getting GPUs to mine Bitcoin
 
There were Titans before it and now there is 3090. 2080Ti was not that unique of a thing for its price and time of devaluation.
And yet the 3090 is cheaper in MSRP. The unique part of the 2080ti was that the rest of the stack was so far behind it, and more importantly, barely elevated the performance beyond a 1080ti.

The 3090 you can easily just ignore. The 2080ti was a new gen of perf and the only card trruly offering that until SUPER (2080) got released.
 
I am looking forward prices going up so that there is actually stock available to buy.
 
Luckily my PC is capable for my needs and when I upgrade it's more of a "that's a good deal that I will see real world benefits from" upgrade vs "that will increase my theoretical benchmarks and give me bragging rights" upgrade.
 
Luckily my PC is capable for my needs and when I upgrade it's more of a "that's a good deal that I will see real world benefits from" upgrade vs "that will increase my theoretical benchmarks and give me bragging rights" upgrade.
My 5700 serves me quite well and Gaming at 1440P means my Vega 64 is not too shabby either but you can't deny that the new Gen is perceivably faster in just about every Game out there. If you could have gotten a card at MSRP like the 3080 or 6800 I do not think that you would have buyer's remorse with either of those?
 
My 5700 serves me quite well and Gaming at 1440P means my Vega 64 is not too shabby either but you can't deny that the new Gen is perceivably faster in just about every Game out there
New Gen is "almost" always faster than it's previous gen counterpart and using your example obviously the RX6800 is faster than the RX 5700 in raw benchmarks and an overall better performing card. The "perceivable" aspect would be unique to each individual user. If I had an under powered CPU and/or 1080 60hz monitor, I may not necessarily see the difference as opposed to people with better gaming CPUs and higher refresh monitors (depending on the exact games) .

If you could have gotten a card at MSRP like the 3080 or 6800 I do not think that you would have buyer's remorse with either of those?
Well that is unique to the individual. Granted at this time that would be a great buy for someone who wants that kind of performance. I personally would have buyers remorse as I would never spend that kind of money (even at MSRP) and I would be selling the card on ebay right now if I did so happen to purchase it at MSRP (for a small profit).
 
In my specific case, my planned upgrades for 2021-2022 are CPU, its cooler, RAM and GPU.

The one that I'm likely to do pretty soon is RAM upgrade, either go to 24 or 32 GB of RAM, since I've been uncomfortably close to hitting the 16 GB ceiling I currently have way too often, mostly because of VMs and other stuff I sometimes run in the background, and the prices for 8 or 16 GB sticks are quite affordable still.

CPU, I'm thinking of going for a 5900X. No need for more, and the 5800X's single CCD heats up too much to consider it.

CPU cooler, for obvious reasons. Hats off to AMD anyways for trying to deliver a half-decent air cooler with their products.

GPU... Well, Polaris can't shine forever, so either it will be replaced or it will go out like a red giant star. Since I do FAH, I'll probably have Nvidia in my sights, but it is still up to price.

Availability is probably not going to be a problem, regardless of the US/EU situation on that. Pricing is another beast entirely and the reason why I'm going to tackle the upgrades over the next two years.
im in the same 16gb of ram boat AND cast out the 5800x for the same reason. I want the overkill 5950x though. But since i use 1 rig to game,stream and edit etc i need the extra cores. If i was only gaming the 5900x would be my recommendation. AND thats coming from a guy running a delidded 8700k @5.1Ghz and that has shares of stock in intel.
 

Attachments

  • CPU-Z  1_2_2021 9_02_12 PM.png
    CPU-Z 1_2_2021 9_02_12 PM.png
    28.7 KB · Views: 55
  • CPU-Z  1_2_2021 9_04_03 PM.png
    CPU-Z 1_2_2021 9_04_03 PM.png
    14 KB · Views: 57
  • Screenshot_2020-12-16 I scored 24 690 in Fire Strike.png
    Screenshot_2020-12-16 I scored 24 690 in Fire Strike.png
    1.1 MB · Views: 69
Price only goes up because they're sold at such prices, and as long as people do this, product will remain scarce and the price will remain inflated.
I didn't ask why this was happening. It was a direct reply to your claim that there are tons of cards out there, and they're affordable. That's simply not true where I live.
 
I didn't ask why this was happening. It was a direct reply to your claim that there are tons of cards out there, and they're affordable. That's simply not true where I live.
there no mass availability of gpu's right now and ALL have excessive price increases right now. look at the 2070 super for an example. 930$ renewed on amazon for the ftw version. which when it launched the mrsp for it was 550$ new. how is that affordable? https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce...d=1&keywords=2070+super&qid=1610033474&sr=8-1
 
  • Like
Reactions: SL2
I just need a new gpu is that too much to ask ffs lol.

Apparently it is.. because shipping containers go “missing”, back door deals going down on the daily.

And these are the days of our lives...
 
I just need a new gpu is that too much to ask ffs lol.

Apparently it is.. because shipping containers go “missing”, back door deals going down on the daily.

And these are the days of our lives...
if you really NEED a decent upgrade ild snag this. I already have the ftw3 hybrid so this one wouldnt match mine or ild get it myself. The shrouds are different so i cant run them in sli. https://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-1080-...261313&hash=item3ff1b1ee04:g:48gAAOSwePdf9Oy~
 

Attachments

  • 2020-12-19_17-17-41.jpg
    2020-12-19_17-17-41.jpg
    89.4 KB · Views: 59
  • MSI Afterburner  1_2_2021 3_29_02 PM.png
    MSI Afterburner 1_2_2021 3_29_02 PM.png
    162.9 KB · Views: 54
  • CPU-Z  1_2_2021 9_04_03 PM.png
    CPU-Z 1_2_2021 9_04_03 PM.png
    14 KB · Views: 56
shipping containers go “missing”
They are not missing, they are all sitting in the port of LA, Long Beach, Rotterdam, and Piraeus...most of them empty.
 
That’s not a bad deal actually. I see people in my town trying to get more then that for their 1070s.
Im always on the hunt for a good gpu deal. I got my ftw3 1080 ti hybrid for 380 back in march last year.
 
I haven't been able to do much with computers since I had kids, but this year is a little different. I bought my 980 Classified 2 years ago for 200 beaver bucks, so maybe about 140usd? I had a 970FTW that I bought a month before that for 150cnd.. Great deals! I don't have the 970 anymore though. Could use it right now for a second rig. I do have a GTX 580 but.. nah.
 
I haven't been able to do much with computers since I had kids, but this year is a little different. I bought my 980 Classified 2 years ago for 200 beaver bucks, so maybe about 140usd? I had a 970FTW that I bought a month before that for 150cnd.. Great deals! I don't have the 970 anymore though. Could use it right now for a second rig. I do have a GTX 580 but.. nah.
I know how that is. Ones grown and out of the house but still have 2 teenagers. So they tend to bleed the budget lol. the good thing is that my stepdaughter prefers her ipad and my son would ratcher play on console instead of dealing with a pc. Their choice and its the cheaper option so i dont say anything lmao.

a guy on here has a great deal right now. we blocked eachother because we dont see eye to eye, but its still a good deal if anyones needing a good reliable gpu :) https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/msi-gtx-1080ti-gaming-x.276908/
 
I wanted to upgrade to a 5900X and a GTX 3090 but due to this joke of availability, the lack of demanding games, I think I can survive 2 more years like this.
I did buy a 14Tb HDD and a 2Tb SSD at the end of 2020, I'm fine.
Maybe a 3080Ti could be a cool thing, time will tell if it's a paper launch comedy again.
 
No plan for 2021, I'm happy with my new set up made late 2020. Maybe another SSD 2Tb for my games but I don't see the interest yet.
 
Hoping that everyone willing to pay such premiums will do so soon, then the retailers will have to lower those prices if they want to sell anything at all. Otherwise no new components for me this year.
 
Back
Top