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[Jeff P]

Found an article that goes into detail about what's being talked about in this thread.

from SeekingAlpha|Jan. 29, 2018 8:51 PM ET --
Crypto Mining Could Be Playing Games With Nvidia:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/414...&uprof=66&dr=1

--this:

Graphics card manufacturing problems
Multiple contacts within our global supply chain are saying the shortage of cards is because of a shortage of memory used on the cards.

--and this:

Right now, there is more demand than supply. There is unmet demand from both gamers and miners. The relevant question is whether supply has contracted or demand has exploded. Supply is not meeting demand, so it has to be because of one of the following reasons:

• Manufacturing bottlenecks at the card level
• Tremendous demand from crypto miners
• Shortages of key components like graphic memory

If it is because of manufacturing bottlenecks, that explains everything. That would be bad short term for Nvidia, due to the current reliance the company has on the gaming segment to fund the "stepping stones" for its future growth initiatives in AI, cloud data centers, and automotive.

If it is because of miner demand, it is not from Europe or the Americas, because the cards are just not arriving, unless it is through the deep black market. If it is miner demand, it is coming from Asia, and that is also not good for Nvidia, as it means the gaming markets in NA and Europe are left high and dry. Many gamers on message boards are already posting comments with the general theme of "miners must die".

If it is because of a GDDR5 memory shortage, that is good for a company like Micron, as it means the company is selling as much as it can make at prices favorable to it. Obviously, this is temporally not a good scenario for Nvidia.

So if crypto mining is off the charts, balls to walls, driving demand for Nvidia GeForce GPUs, it is an Asian phenomenon.

-jp

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