Did you know about the semiconductor shortage when building your new system?

[ThaiTaffy]

I know that the majority of users on this forum are switched on and would be up to date on the majority of information in the pc market, but I'm curious and also just wanted to tell people my story.

So back in July of this year to decided to build a system, I've been "stuck" in Thailand for the whole duration of the pandemic and not having my pc with me was starting to feel painful.

I'd kinda given up reding the news and from what i had seen there had been no mention of a chip shortage. I picked parts up during the monthly sales here none of which seemed overpriced, my plan was to buy the majority of the system then buy a gpu with the leftover cash.

Even when buying parts I hadn't noticed how bad the gpu market was but the time was finally upon me and when I started looking my heart sank.
The second hand market is strong here in Thailand but even there prices are highly inflated. I finally got my hands on a powercolor Rx 570 red dragon at the msrp of a rtx 3060, and not even from a scalper I bought it from one of the biggest pc parts retailers in the country.

I feel defeated I was proud my modest system cost so little up until that point.

Has anyone else here been hit by the shortage unknowingly?

 

[R-T-B]

Has anyone else here been hit by the shortage unknowingly?

I mean, sort of. In a way all of us have been. None of us expected it, and certainly none of us thought it would still be going on.

But if I bought something now I'd do so knowing I'd be paying out the nose.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

I mean, sort of. In a way all of us have been. None of us expected it, and certainly none of us thought it would still be going on.

But if I bought something now I'd do so knowing I'd be paying out the nose.

That's the sad thing since I built the system I've managed to procure a Asus rtx 3070 below msrp as a good friend is one of the co-owners of a very old computer company in the UK but sadly it's sat in his home 9000km away and I'm too scared to have it shipped.

 

[cvaldes]

I was absolutely aware of the semiconductor shortage. In fact, I did not realistically expect to have the primary gaming system I have today.

I built a compact system in July 2020 based on a Ryzen 3700X and GeForce 2070 SUPER FE which did what I set out to accomplish: Ultra 1440p gaming. I paid the $499 MSRP for the 2070 SUPER and $180 for a Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 for another computer. At the time many PC writers were saying "Now is a terrible system to build a gaming PC." THEY WERE SOOOOO WRONG. Today those GPUs are going for insane prices, especially the 4-year-old Radeon card.

I had no plans to immediately switch to Ultra 4K gaming but I decided to accumulate good parts if they were reasonably priced. When the GPU shortage hit in November 2020 I figured it would be a couple of years before I could buy a GPU at non-scalper prices. I tried in vain to queue up for 3080 FEs and 3090 FEs at BestBuy.com but never was able to finish the transaction before the inventory sold out.

I eventually scored a Ryzen 5600X at MSRP via Newegg Shuffle (which was impossible to find on the open market at the time). That was a modest increase above the 3700X but I took it anyhow. I continued to participate in the Newegg Shuffle and to my surprise a few months ago I was offered an ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC at the manufacturer's inflated MSRP. I bought it knowing that it would be extremely unlikely to see this opportunity for another 18+ months.

So now I had a graphics card capable of Ultra 4K gaming; I patiently waited for the Ryzen 5900X to come down to MSRP which it eventually did. I also decided to upgrade my 8-year-old 1080p/60Hz TV to an LG C1 OLED. I have not purchased a single part from a scalper or dodgy fly-by-night retailer. Everything was bought through conventional non-rapacious channels.

Today I have the fine system described in my system specs. The OLED display is awesome. Because of the custom cooling loop, the PC is nearly silent even with the GPU maxed out at ~335W. PBO is enabled but no other CPU overclocking is done. The graphics card runs at the ASUS factory OC. I can set every game to Ultra quality levels and not squander time diddling with graphics settings. When DLSS is available I set it to Quality.

I lucked out on GPU availability but even then all of my components were purchased at MSRP largely because I was patient enough to wait for reasonable prices to appear. Patience will lighten the impact on your wallet.

 

[R-T-B]

Patience will lighten the impact on your wallet.

This is so very true. When I wrote what I wrote, I did so under the assumption one needed a system "now." "Now" is costly. Patience will help you.

 

[cvaldes]

EDIT: The post below was a reply to a now-deleted comment by another thread participant who ranted about gaming and money and bragged about how they bought and sold unwanted PC hardware with a minor profit. They also suggested how people should use their free time.

I have deliberately left this post intact as a reminder to that commenter (and others) that people have a variety of interests and not everyone's usage cases are identical, a concept that is repeatedly lost on a certain number of participants here at TPU (and elsewhere sadly).

You know that one can game and read books. And garden. And sculpt. And cook. And play music. And exercise. And participate in charitable causes.

It's not an all-or-nothing scenario.

Feel free to criticize gamers but be aware that there will be others who judge you for both your actions and non-actions.

I don't know why you bought PC hardware and sold them for a slight gain. You should have bought QQQ & SPY, held on to them for a year for long-term capital gains. From a tax perspective, that's far more sensible than buying and selling PC hardware.

I see PC components as an expense not an investment. I buy stuff that I will use. I don't buy stuff that I won't use.

 

[WhitetailAni]

Yes, but it doesn't matter too much to me because Socket 478 parts aren't being manufactured anymore.

 

[freeagent]

I built mine in November, I didn’t think it would last this long. I waited 9 months to replace my GPU.

Actually, I waited 9 months to replace my sons GTX 580 Matrix Platinum with my 980 Classified.

Buncha hosers running the world.