Nvidia CFO: GPU Shortages Will Ease in 2H 2022

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We think the second half of 2022 is when GeForce RTX 40-series 'Ada Lovelace' is set arrive.

Asus
(Image credit: Asus)

The best graphics cards for gaming have been in tight supply for nearly two years now due to strong demand amid insufficient supply, but Nvidia says that shortages of its GPUs will ease in the second half of 2020. Given the timeline, it looks like Nvidia implies that the supply situation will improve when it launches its next-generation GeForce RTX 40-series 'Ada Lovelace' family of graphics processors. 

"Throughout all of calendar 2021, we have seen strong demand for GeForce and it continues to remain stronger than our overall supply that we have," said Colette Kress, chief financial officer of Nvidia, at the 24th Annual Needham Growth Conference (via SeekingAlpha). "We feel better about our supply situation as we move into the second half of the calendar year 2022." 

Nvidia did not elaborate what is set to happen in the second half of 2022 that should improve its supply. But we can speculate here a bit. Given the fact that Nvidia tends to release a new GPU family every two years, this fall will be right on time for the company to launch its GeForce RTX 40-series 'Ada Lovelace' lineup. 

Just like other companies, Nvidia never discloses when it plans to release its next-generation products (so take everything with a grain of salt here), but it is pretty much consistent with its two-years consumer GPU cadence. 

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 - Cell 0 GeForce RTX 40-seriesGeForce RTX 30-seriesGeForce RTX 20-seriesGeForce 10-seriesGeForce 700/800/900-series
ArchitectureAda LovelaceAmpereTuringPascalMaxwell
Launch Time?September 2020September 2018May 2016February – September 2014

Nvidia's Ada Lovelace GPUs are expected to be based on TSMC's N5 node, which is in its third year of high-volume manufacturing and with decent yields. Given strong and growing demand for its products, Nvidia has likely adjusted its order at TSMC accordingly, which is why it is confident about supply right now. Additionally, the Taiwan-based foundry has spent tens of billions of dollars on N5-capable capacities last year, it should be hopefully able to meet Nvidia's demands later in 2022. 

But for gamers who want to play here and now, the launch of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40-series 'Ada Lovelace' later this year may not be such a good thing as it means that Nvidia is not really inclined to order significantly more GeForce RTX 30-series 'Ampere' GPUs from Samsung Foundry to manage stock.

It remains to be seen what exactly Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40-series 'Ada Lovelace' graphics cards bring to the table in terms of features and performance, but if the new family significantly improves supply, gamers will certainly appreciate it.

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • thisisaname
    It remains to be seen what exactly Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40-series 'Ada Lovelace' graphics cards bring to the table in terms of features and performance, but if the new family significantly improves supply, gamers will certainly appreciate it.

    Just hope the price is not significantly higher as well!!
    Reply
  • I too hope this turns out to be true, but I'm not optimistic regarding this whole supply/demand getting stabilized at least till 2023. I think Jensen Huang has also mentioned before that we shouldn't expect the GPU market to stabilize even in 2022, though not sure if this has changed now, given the above commitment from Colette Kress.

    Fingers crossed. And yes, as the poster above me mentioned, pricing of these cards is also going to be a huge deciding factor as well. But if they have enough supply of the 5nm chips, then hopefully these GPUs won't be "aggressively" priced.

    BTW, a slight Typo error in your article, @ Anton Shilov. It should be 2022 instead of 2020 in the first para as shown below. Not a big deal though. Just thought of pointing this out.

    The best graphics cards for gaming have been in tight supply for nearly two years now due to strong demand amid insufficient supply, but Nvidia says that shortages of its GPUs will ease in the second half of 2020.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    thisisaname said:
    Just hope the price is not significantly higher as well!!
    If the performance bumps are as large as the presentations claim they are going to be (more than double) then you can expect 30+% MSRP bumps across the board. In the past, AMD and Nvidia usually spread a new smaller node's shrink potential over 3-4 generations and ~30% performance bumps per cycle. They'll want to cash in on putting out most of N5's potential right from the start.
    Reply
  • Jim90
    Hmmm....are they going to stop selling, en masse, direct to miners?

    I think not.
    Reply
  • marmot14
    "But we can speculate here a bit."
    Common - Ethereum 2.0 - the merge - is currently scheduled for June 2022 and that is obviously the reason as PoW Ethereum mining then goes away. It's extremely likely that eBay etc. will be flooded with used GPUs even if there are other coins that can be mined, and this will massively improve supply.
    Tom's Hardware - considering the number of crypto/mining articles you post you should be aware of these things.
    Reply
  • DSzymborski
    marmot14 said:
    "But we can speculate here a bit."
    Common - Ethereum 2.0 - the merge - is currently scheduled for June 2022 and that is obviously the reason as PoW Ethereum mining then goes away. It's extremely likely that eBay etc. will be flooded with used GPUs even if there are other coins that can be mined, and this will massively improve supply.
    Tom's Hardware - considering the number of crypto/mining articles you post you should be aware of these things.

    Considering that Ethereum's move to proof of stake has been threatened since 2016, with the move continually pushed farther into the horizon as the supposed date approaches every time, it's a bit of a stretch at this point to not take this with a huge grain of salt.
    Reply
  • Jim90 said:
    Hmmm....are they going to stop selling, en masse, direct to miners?

    I think not.
    Exactly if they don’t implement a queue then we’ll never get one
    Reply
  • marmot14
    Jim90 said:
    Hmmm....are they going to stop selling, en masse, direct to miners?

    I think not.
    Incorrect - Nvidia only sell their CMP products directly to miners. AIB manufacturers on the other hand, do sell gaming GPUs to miners.
    Reply
  • marmot14
    DSzymborski said:
    Considering that Ethereum's move to proof of stake has been threatened since 2016, with the move continually pushed farther into the horizon as the supposed date approaches every time, it's a bit of a stretch at this point to not take this with a huge grain of salt.
    If you've been following Ethereum development closely you'd realise it's very unlikely to be delayed further this time. Sure, it might slip from June by a few months at most, but it's not going to go into 2023. Hence it is very safe for Nvidia to say GPU supply will be better in the 2nd half of 2022.
    Reply
  • marmot14
    InvalidError said:
    If the performance bumps are as large as the presentations claim they are going to be (more than double) then you can expect 30+% MSRP bumps across the board. In the past, AMD and Nvidia usually spread a new smaller node's shrink potential over 3-4 generations and ~30% performance bumps per cycle. They'll want to cash in on putting out most of N5's potential right from the start.
    If they do that they will lose significant market share to Intel and AMD who can undercut them with their next gen GPUs on a price/performance basis.
    Reply