Since the rise of crypto mining, gamers have found it hard to find a GPU update due to unavailable stocks. Even after finding a suitable mid-range or high-end graphics card it was extremely difficult to buy one due to their expensive price tags. After a phase of confusion and unrest in the gaming world, things have finally become normal. But the question of another hike does arise which has been humbled by the new report by Jon Peddie Research.
It is being acknowledged that the shortcoming in the supply of graphics cards was due to the bulk purchases made by crypto miners. Another reason for the problem can be the decision taken by the memory makers to focus more on NAND flash instead of DRAM. The report informs that crypto miners still have an enormous impact on the PC chip market, but it is dwindling with time.
JPR said, “We believe the market for crypto-mining AIBs (add-in boards) has saturated and the miners who wanted AIBs have got them now. The gamers, who have pulled back on purchases due to surge-pricing by the channel, are now seeing supply increase and prices coming back down. We think there is pent-up demand among gamers, which will carry forth into Q2 and will help mitigate the usual seasonal decline in the second quarter for desktop discrete GPU sales.”
Till the conclusion of the report hold its ground, gamers will enjoy a good time. However, it should be noted that digital currencies are highly volatile and another hike in their value might force crypto miners to purchase chips in bulk again. Similarly, tech giant Nvidia claimed that crypto sales would see a two-thirds drop by the end of the current quarter. It informed that the spike in GPU prices in the quarter was due to the increase in demand for crypto miners which left gamers helpless.
But, the report disclosed other interesting information as well. JPR stated that the growth rate of shipment of desktop chips increased by 66.4 percent with a quarterly growth rate of 6.4 percent. Even though gamers found it hard to gain access to graphics cards they were certainly available for purchase.
The report notes that crypto miners purchased 4776 million worth of three million chips in the previous year and bought 1.7 million in Q1 2018. Nvidia was the biggest gainer as its share in the GPU market raised to 18.4 percent from 15.8 percent. Meanwhile, AMD was little success in increasing its market share from 13.1 percent to 14.9 percent. But, Intel is still the dominant player in the market with 66.6 percent market share as its CPUs come with inbuilt graphics.
Nvidia will also be releasing the next-gen GeForce GTX 11180 or 2080 chip in July 2018 which is hoped to solve the problem of unavailability. It will be interesting to see whether gamers will get saved by chip manufacturers amidst the danger of crypto miners consuming the last bit of graphics cards to produce more virtual coins.
