Following on from Nvidia’s disappointing revelation that GPU stock would continue to fall short during the first quarter of 2021, we’ve now heard similar words from AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su (via Tom’s Hardware), indicating that Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs will continue to be difficult to get hold of until July under the current projection.
In AMD’s 2020 financial year report, Su stated that shortages were caused by excessive demand, affecting the availability of the best gaming CPUs, best graphics cards, and the AMD-powered Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles. The stock situation is expected to improve after the first half of the year, once extra manufacturing capacity is up and running.
With Nvidia giving a similar timeline with stock expected to improve after the first quarter of the year, this means you might actually be able to build a gaming PC in the summer without breaking out your wallet for massively-inflated hardware prices. But until then, you’re either resorting to scalper prices, constantly scanning stock checker sites, or hammering your F5 key into oblivion.
There are some signs of hope already for European customers, however, as a few of AMD’s latest Ryzen 5000 CPUs are in stock for next day delivery on Amazon UK. At the time of writing, you can purchase the Ryzen 7 5800X for £424, which is pretty much spot on its MSRP.
Unfortunately, US customers will still have to play the waiting game though, as both AMD’s RX 6000 series and previous-generation RX 5000 GPUs – which are still solid 1080p / 1440p contenders – continue to be out of stock everywhere.