The RTX 30-Series GPU Shortage Just Got Seriously Bad News

If you're trying to build a new PC at the moment, then you've almost certainly had a difficult time getting parts for it at a decent price. GPUs in particular are very difficult to come by at fair prices, and that seems doubly true for NVIDIA's new RTX 30-series cards. If you were hoping that we'd only have to endure a few more months of hard-to-find hardware, you might want to settle in, because NVIDIA has indicated that it could be quite some time before the shortage is resolved.

In a recent call with investors, NVIDIA indicated that this shortage is probably going to last most of 2021. "Overall demand remains very strong and continues to exceed supply while our channel inventories remain quite lean," NVIDIA executive vice president and CFO Colette Press said during the call. "We expect demand to continue to exceed supply for much of this year."

If you've been banging your head against the wall trying to get one of these RTX 30-series cards, that probably isn't what you want to hear. It's every bit a scramble to get these cards whenever they're restocked anywhere, and stock never seems to last longer than a few seconds. With NVIDIA indicating that demand will outpace supply for much of this year, it could be a long time before any card in the RTX 30-series can be described as "readily available."

Press, however, did give a slight glimmer of hope that things will at least get a little better in the short-term. "We believe we will have sufficient supply to support sequential growth beyond Q1," she added. While that suggests supply will improve as we move deeper into the year, it's important to understand just how high demand is right now – not only is there a raw materials shortage that's bottlenecking production, but PC gamers and cryptocurrency miners alike are competing for stock when it becomes available.

So, with demand from two very large segments of consumers eating up stock that's already limited at the point of production, it's clear that we have a long way to go before supply catches up with demand. Here's hoping that things noticeably improve throughout summer and fall, but if you're trying to get one of these RTX 30-series cards, you should probably just prepare for more frustration.