The Computer Chipocalypse

[Chance]

ArsTechnica has reported (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/intel-nvidia-tsmc-execs-agree-chip-shortage-could-last-into-2023/)that executives from Intel, Nvidia, and TSMC are foreseeing the chip shortage lasting into 2023. I was planning on getting new desktops for the wife and I next year, but pushed ahead and got them this week just because there may not be any to buy next year. Anyone else hoarding?

[Borderland]

I have two very old laptops ( 7 plus years old) and I've been considering upgrading. Both are running win 10 but not real well.

Should I just replace those now and save myself some grief down the road? I would hate to go into Best Buy and be told they didn't have any laptops to sell.

I'd probably just buy another computer with windows on it. I don't want to stretch my brain with Apple OS.

[Chance]

It may not be a terrible idea to get those sooner rather than later. There's still inventory to be had, but in another few months, it might be a beggars/choosers situation.

[DC_P]

I am in the planning phase of a desktop PC overhaul and was hoping things would improve soon...

[olstyn]

I just recently replaced my Mac Mini with one of the new M1 system on a chip-based ones, so I'm good on that front. (And I've been impressed with that device.)

My gaming PC probably has another few years in it before it'll start feeling long in the tooth and I'll want to upgrade it, so I'll be waiting this particular shortage out.

[Wise_A]

I was going to do a complete rebuild--AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, nVidia 3070RTX--but you just can't get the components anywhere. I think the availability is even worse than the gun situation. So I'm holding off for now--there's nothing wrong with my current rig, just some games I think I'd rather wait and play.

[farscott]

Based on what I was seeing at work, we upgraded my MacBook Air and my wife's iPad in January of this year. My laptop was discounted by 10% as I did not want the new M1 chipset and wanted the Intel offering. We had last updated my laptop in 2015, so it was time.

[BN]

I should probably update my desktop, but it makes my head hurt every time I do research. :confused:

I've thought about just getting a laptop or Ipad, but I like a real mouse.

[Borderland]

I should probably update my desktop, but it makes my head hurt every time I do research. :confused:

I've thought about just getting a laptop or Ipad, but I like a real mouse.

You can run a laptop with a wireless mouse, uses a USB chip instead of integrated on the board.



https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Computer-Unifying-Receiver/dp/B087Z5WDJ2/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=wireless+mouse&qid=1619282642&s=electronics&sr=1-4

[Guerrero]

I am... um... peripherally involved in the industry, and the situation is pretty bad. In addition to way increased demand and a shortage of workers due to COVID, there was a least one major plant that burned down and the company is scrambling to somehow keep up the supply.

[mtnbkr]

Hmm.

My main PC is 9 years old. It wasn't high end when I built it, but is starting to show its age. I'm debating on building another or just getting one of those little Intel/Asus/Gigabyte micro PCs, stuffing it full of SSD and RAM, and calling it good.

Chris

[FNFAN]

My original work laptop was a hand-me-down that would have been eligible to vote in the next presidential election. It featured a massive 4gb of ram and the work flow required accessing multiple programs which include image files and some video. Some of the rural areas had sub dial-up speed wifi.:(

About 10 months ago a replacement was ordered and 2 months ago it finally arrived. A nice 16gb commercial grade Dell and a dock to drive a pair of 24" monitors that got thrown in on the order. To say I was doing the "happy dance" around my office is not an understatement.:) Then a transfer opportunity came through and I moved to another facility in a larger town that has actual normal commercial speed connectivity!

Some of the people that also had purchase orders submitted around the time mine was are still waiting and that is for state level procurement. It's a hard time for new tech purchases!

[Half Moon]

My original work laptop was a hand-me-down that would have been eligible to vote in the next presidential election. It featured a massive 4gb of ram and the work flow required accessing multiple programs which include image files and some video. Some of the rural areas had sub dial-up speed wifi.:(

About 10 months ago a replacement was ordered and 2 months ago it finally arrived. A nice 16gb commercial grade Dell and a dock to drive a pair of 24" monitors that got thrown in on the order. To say I was doing the "happy dance" around my office is not an understatement.:) Then a transfer opportunity came through and I moved to another facility in a larger town that has actual normal commercial speed connectivity!

Some of the people that also had purchase orders submitted around the time mine was are still waiting and that is for state level procurement. It's a hard time for new tech purchases!

COVID, the Suez, etc aren't helping but chip shortages, of one sort of another, have been a thing 3 or 4 years. If I remember right it started with flooding at the South Korean RAM plants, and has never really bounced back as one disaster or another has hit year after year. Onesey, twosey consumer grade orders have been fine but bulk buys of computers have been months of lead time for feels like forever. Some of it is likely Just In Time manufacturing rearing it's head at a time when supply lines are constrained.

[luckyman]

I am... um... peripherally involved in the industry, and the situation is pretty bad....

I see what you did there [emoji41]

[Chance]

COVID, the Suez, etc aren't helping but chip shortages, of one sort of another, have been a thing 3 or 4 years.

The cryptocurrency boom turned graphics cards into unobtanium in that window.

[Navin Johnson]

Same issue with vehicles....

[hufnagel]

I buy most of my gear used anyways. 12-18 month off corporate lease equipment is like 10% of the original cost in a lot of cases, and way more than adequate for the majority of people.

[beenalongtime]

Last year, with the stimulus checks, there was a buying spree on electronics. I avoided it. I started looking at the beginning of this year, and decided my wants (picked up on some NVME drives when I found deals), but pretty much everything else ground to a halt. (looked at stuff, and estimated date is long down the road, or flat unorderable).

So I have been pulling out my Raspberry PI's and doing more specific task use things, to take loads off my older pc's.

[Chance]

Might be the time to replace that old TV too. From Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/the-chip-shortage-is-driving-up-tech-prices-starting-with-tvs/):


In recent months, the price of larger TV models has shot up around 30 percent compared to last summer, according to market research company NPD. The jump is a direct result of the current chip crisis, and underscores that a fix is more complicated than simply ramping up production. It may also be only a matter of time before other gadgets that use the same circuitry—laptops, tablets, and VR headsets among them—experience similar sticker shock.

....

While the supply squeeze has been felt across the semiconductor industry, those display-bound integrated circuits pose specific challenges. Since they are not especially advanced, the circuits are typically made at chip factories that are several generations behind the cutting edge. With chipmakers focused on building more advanced fabrication plants that yield more valuable components, there has been little incentive to invest in capacity at older facilities. It’s simply not possible to churn out more of them even when demand spikes.

[DC_P]

I decided to to ahead and get what I could now - i7 11,700K/MB/32G PC3600 RAM. Paid more (maybe $100 total for all 3), than I originally planned but it is a massive improvement from the i5 2500K system I had.

Who knows when the GTX 3080 video cards will be available at a non-inflated price.

[olstyn]

Might be the time to replace that old TV too. From Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/the-chip-shortage-is-driving-up-tech-prices-starting-with-tvs/):

You made me curious, so I looked - Best Buy wants 16% more now for the exact same TV I bought from them ~6 months ago. Seems that story checks out.

[Chance]

From The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/selling-your-used-car-you-could-turn-a-profit-11626606000):


Used-car prices, which have soared in recent months, are now defying economic gravity.

Once thought of as the ultimate depreciating asset, some car owners are finding their vehicles are worth as much as—if not more than—they originally paid for them, dealers and analysts say.

....

The recent jump in used-vehicle pricing is the latest in what has been a topsy-turvy year for the U.S. car business. Consumer demand for cars and trucks is near an all-time high, but car companies are struggling to keep up, slammed by a global computer-chip shortage that is curtailing factory production on the new-car side.

As a result, buyers unable to find what they want in showrooms are flocking to the used-car lot, where inventory is also being constrained by fewer people turning in leased vehicles and rental-car firms holding on to vehicle fleets longer because they are unable to find replacements.

....

Historically, it has been cheaper to buy a used vehicle over a new one, and overall that remains the case. But for some used models—mostly those with low mileage and bought in the past year or two—the differential is closing quickly.

For instance, the average price paid by a customer in June for a one-year-old vehicle was only about $80 less than the selling price of a brand-new vehicle, according to J.D. Power. That gap is typically closer to $5,000 or more, the firm’s data show.

[Hot Sauce]

I buy most of my gear used anyways. 12-18 month off corporate lease equipment is like 10% of the original cost in a lot of cases, and way more than adequate for the majority of people.
Where do you usually buy from?

[Sig_Fiend]

If a desktop works for anyone looking to upgrade, I'd highly recommend checking out an older Dell Precision workstation. They have Precision series laptops as well, but I don't have any experience with those. You'll often get server-grade hardware, super reliable, great performance, highly moddable (e.g. add performance and extend the life significantly), and a bunch of other nice features. $150-300 will get you one with a Xeon E3 or E5 series CPU and a motherboard that can likely take at least 32gb ram. There are still tons of these things for cheap all over ebay (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=dell+precision+desktop&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_odkw=dell+precision+tower&_osacat=0&LH_BIN=1&LH_PrefLoc=1&_udhi=300), for now at least.

Some of the Dell Optiplex series are also a good bargain, like under $200 bargain. For example, the 7010, 9010, 9020... those are from 2012+ and most wouldn't even consider something older than 2-3yrs old (lol). Despite the age, for a daily driver desktop, using the web, word processors, watching some movies, honestly those can work just fine. If you're into serious gaming or anything that takes a lot of ram or GPU, stick to the Precision series if choosing between the two.

Between these 2 Dell model lines, it appears the price/performance sweet spot is the models made between 2012-2016. You can find something well under $500 (unless you max out specs) that will honestly last you another 10+yrs of regular daily usage.

[Chance]

Phones and tablets are going up now. From The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/chip-shortage-reaches-smartphone-makers-11626695523):


The chip supply struggles aren’t distributed evenly across the smartphone industry. Apple Inc., which accounts for about a sixth of the 1.3 billion smartphones sold annually, has stayed out of trouble given its supply-chain clout, according to industry analysts, as have most of Samsung’s premium devices. But that still leaves more than 80% of the smartphone industry reeling for parts.

....

Higher component prices brought on by the chip shortages are getting passed through for now by raising device prices. The average wholesale price for phones world-wide went up 5% in the April-to-June quarter, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics. That is a break from recent years when prices didn’t increase by more than 2%.

....

Much of the phone industry is struggling to procure a variety of semiconductors, industry analysts say, with pronounced struggles in sourcing power-management chips, display drivers, application processors, in addition to 4G and 5G chipsets.

As of June, the average lead time for semiconductors stood at 19 weeks, longer than 16 weeks, which is considered a supply-chain danger zone, said Duksan Jang, a research associate at Susquehanna Financial Group. A healthy lead time is considered to be between 12 to 14 weeks.

[Yung]

If we lose Taiwan, it'll get even worse.

Where do you usually buy from?
Yes, hufnagel , inquiring minds would surely like to know.

[Hot Sauce]

If we lose Taiwan, it'll get even worse.

Losing Taiwan, which I assume you mean a PRC takeover, would be such a catastrophic geopolitical scenario that of all things, this would be really small potatoes.

It likely means we'd have engaged in a shooting conflict with the PRC and lost. It'd also signify to all local states that US defense assurances and alliances in Asia are worthless.

[Joe in PNG]

Losing Taiwan, which I assume you mean a PRC takeover, would be such a catastrophic geopolitical scenario that of all things, this would be really small potatoes.

It likely means we'd have engaged in a shooting conflict with the PRC and lost. It'd also signify to all local states that US defense assurances and alliances in Asia are worthless.

And I'll probably get to participate in a reenactment of Kokoda.

[Hot Sauce]

And I'll probably get to participate in a reenactment of Kokoda.We'll send care packages, bro.

[Yung]

It likely means we'd have engaged in a shooting conflict with the PRC and lost. It'd also signify to all local states that US defense assurances and alliances in Asia are worthless.

Well, you are more optimistic than I am. I was thinking more along the lines that the administration would simply do nothing to intervene.

[hufnagel]

If we lose Taiwan, it'll get even worse.

Yes, hufnagel , inquiring minds would surely like to know.. Just saw this. Ebay.

[Chance]

From The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-chip-shortages-latest-worry-too-few-chips-for-chip-making-11651575601):


The drought in chip availability that has hit auto production, raised electronics prices and stoked supply-chain worries in capitals around the globe has a new pain point: a lack of chips needed for the machines that make chips, industry executives say.

The wait time it takes to get machinery for chip-making—one of the world’s most complex and delicate kinds of manufacturing—has extended over recent months. Early in the pandemic it took months from placing an order to receiving the equipment. That time frame has stretched to two or three years in some cases, according to chip-making and equipment executives. Deliveries of previously placed orders are also coming in late, executives say.

As a result, hopes of quickly overcoming the global chip shortage are dimming as it stretches into its third year. What began as a pandemic-era aberration of supercharged demand for laptops and other chip-hungry gadgets has spiraled into a structural problem for the industry. Now many chip executives say the problem will persist into 2023 and 2024, or even longer.

....

Meanwhile, demand is showing little sign of ebbing. Chip-industry sales topped $500 billion for the first time last year and should roughly double by the end of the decade.

....

More than 90 chip factories are expected to start production globally between 2020 and 2024, according to SEMI, an industry group—a huge number in an industry where a single manufacturing tool can cost tens of millions of dollars. Even with the supply issues, global equipment sales this year are expected to be more than $100 billion, SEMI estimates, a threshold many industry veterans thought it would take longer to surpass.

Glad we stocked up on electronics at the beginning of the pandemic. Now we just have to hope nothing breaks....