AMD, Intel and Nvidia CPU and GPU Pricing Expected to Increase in 2022

Silicon wafer
(Image credit: TSMC)

The effects of the silicon shortage continue to linger as AMD, Intel and Nvidia are believed to increase prices of CPUs, GPUs, and ASICs during 2022. As reported by the DigiTimes, TSMC has already raised its quotes by 10-20% for both mature and advanced nodes starting this year, forcing its partners to also increase prices.

For AMD, the report claims that this means a price hike will come to all its processors that take advantage of TSMC's 7nm and 5nm parts, which currently includes AMD's Zen 2 architecture all the way up to AMD's future Zen 4 platform arriving later this year. DigiTimes did not mention any details pertaining to AMD's RDNA2 graphics cards, but we can fully expect those GPUs to get a price hike as well since they rely on TSMC's 7nm process.

Unfortunately, the bad news also extends to Nvidia to a large degree, as its future graphics cards (known as the RTX 40-series for now) reportedly use TSMC's new cutting edge 5nm process instead of silicon from Samsung fabs as Nvidia did with the RTX 30-series. DigiTimes also reports that Nvidia has already made prepayments to TSMC for long-term orders of 5nm silicon for the RTX 40-series GPUs starting in 2022 as well.

This means we could see the RTX 40-series arrive with high MSRP's right off the bat, and those high prices could last for the entire generation. Of course, this will be on top of the already ongoing shortage which will inflate the prices of these GPUs even more, especially if Nvidia plans to release the RTX 40-series in 2022.

Intel will likely be the least affected of the three companies from these changes. However, Intel is still reported to hike pricing due to multiple reasons. The first is related to its chips already outsourced directly to TSMC. Since TSMC is increasing its quotes by a large margin, we can expect Intel to push higher prices onto the consumer.

It is also reported that Intel is proceeding with in-house development of advanced manufacturing nodes and construction of new fabs, which will give Intel more incentive to drive costs higher to recuperate the additional investments. 

Due to all of this, DigiTimes believes 2022 could be a very bad year for the PC industry as a whole. It is believed PC demand will likely slow down quarter by quarter during the year, but at the same time, prices for critical components like CPUs and GPUs will continue to increase. This is thanks to both rising fab costs as well as other factors such as high shipping costs and worsening inflation -- not to mention the silicon shortage.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • VforV
    How is 2022, which will have new Arc GPUs, then Lovelace and RDNA3 and then Zen4 and Raptor Lake, going to be a worse year than 2021?

    Their answer: you like all this new tech that's coming? It's even more expensive than the ludicrous expensive prices we already have! That's how!

    BAM! Take that PC enthusiasts!
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    VforV said:
    How is 2022, which will have new Arc GPUs, then Lovelace and RDNA3 and then Zen4 and Raptor Lake, going to be a worse year than 2021?

    Their answer: you like all this new tech that's coming? It's even more expensive than the ludicrous expensive prices we already have! That's how!

    BAM! Take that PC enthusiasts!

    No it is called out of control inflation. Everything costs more these days.
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    Also one manufacturer can produce bleeding edge parts, and everyone wants to use them.

    Inflation is another thing as well. Even before 2021, the price I paid for a GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB card (~$600 USD in 2005) with inflation taken into account was more expensive than a RTX 3080 at its MSRP.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    I called this in December 2020. Nvidia, and AMD have been closely watching what people are willing to pay scalpers and now want more of the pie. tariffs, and inflation just give them a plausible deniability excuse to further raise their profit margins. Dont believe me? take a look at the record breaking profits they have made over the last several quarters
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    btmedic04 said:
    Dont believe me? take a look at the record breaking profits they have made over the last several quarters
    I'm sure the surge in computer sales due to the pandemic and everyone needing something more up-to-date to install Zoom and Teams on had nothing to do with this.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    hotaru.hino said:
    I'm sure the surge in computer sales due to the pandemic and everyone needing something more up-to-date to install Zoom and Teams on had nothing to do with this.

    sure, that will have some affect, but will not account for the majority of the 84% year over year net income nvidia reported in Q3

    NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Third Quarter Fiscal 2022 | NVIDIA Newsroom
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    btmedic04 said:
    sure, that will have some affect, but will not account for the majority of the 84% year over year net income nvidia reported in Q3

    NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Third Quarter Fiscal 2022 | NVIDIA Newsroom
    To me, this doesn't really sufficiently break down how this revenue was earned. If we focused specifically on gaming:
    How much is actually from hardware sales?
    How much is from subscriptions?
    Is licensing/fees/misc charges from developers and partners included in this?With none of those questions really answered (and I really don't want to spend time looking for them), that doesn't really point to any evidence that NVIDIA looked at how much the scalpers are getting and thinking they can raise prices to get a cut of it. Besides, whatever price any company puts on their product, scalpers are just going to jack it up even more as long as it's a hot ticket item.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    hotaru.hino said:
    Besides, whatever price any company puts on their product, scalpers are just going to jack it up even more as long as it's a hot ticket item.
    The market determines what something is worth, not scalpers. You can't increase prices above what the market is willing to pay and just expect things to keep selling. If Nvidia releases the 4080 at an MSRP of $3000. Scalpers can pick whatever price they want above that, and beyond a few people with bottomless pockets, no one is going to buy them.

    that doesn't really point to any evidence that NVIDIA looked at how much the scalpers are getting and thinking they can raise prices to get a cut of it.

    There have been reports that the reason Nvidia is launching the recent new cards, 3080 12GB in particular, is because AIB's told Nvidia they didn't want to have to compete with the FE cards that had ridiculously below market value MSRP's. So there is evidence that if these new cards aren't targeted to increase Nvidia's profit per GPU, then they exist to increase AIB's profits per GPU sold.
    Reply
  • VforV
    hotaru.hino said:
    To me, this doesn't really sufficiently break down how this revenue was earned. If we focused specifically on gaming:
    How much is actually from hardware sales?
    How much is from subscriptions?
    Is licensing/fees/misc charges from developers and partners included in this?With none of those questions really answered (and I really don't want to spend time looking for them), that doesn't really point to any evidence that NVIDIA looked at how much the scalpers are getting and thinking they can raise prices to get a cut of it. Besides, whatever price any company puts on their product, scalpers are just going to jack it up even more as long as it's a hot ticket item.
    Don't forget miners... a big chunk is from them too.
    Reply
  • jacob249358
    ill just keep chugging along with my 1650 i guess
    Reply