Unfortunately several months ago, my graphics card (a very important part of a computer) broke, and I sent it for repairs while searching for a replacement. What I wasn't prepared to see was the absolute insanity of the prices of graphics cards nowadays. The value of these cards seem to triple or even quadruple in value from their normal price. The fairly decent card I bought back in 2018 for 2 million rupiah (140 USD), is now selling for 8-10 million (600 USD). And that’s the trend for almost all of the gpu’s on sale today. There are several reasons for this massive increase in price, and it has to do with classic supply and demand. 

Let’s cover demand first; Since the pandemic started in early 2020, most people are working from home, so almost everyone needs a personal computer to do their work, leading to an increase of people buying computer parts and laptops. Another major impact to the market was the meteoric rise of cryptocurrency. To effectively mine crypto, several graphics cards are needed for a rig. From 5 to 20 to 100, all of these graphics cards are concentrated in the hands of just several cryptocurrency miners, instead of for the general use of the public.

And now there’s a problem of supply, there just isn’t enough to meet the demands of the market. Since the pandemic started, the raw materials needed to create complicated electronics have been hard to come by. Materials like silicone and metals are being extracted at a much slower rate, and at a much less quantity than before. And so every technology manufacturer is trying to get their share of the very limited stock of basic materials. So these graphics card manufacturers only have a small amount of materials to produce their entire lineup of products, financially, it doesn’t make sense to waste the finite amounts of silicone to manufacture the cheap or even midrange cards, it would be a waste of materials for not a lot of money return. So the only cards being produced nowadays are almost exclusively high-end ones, because that’s where the profit margins are most lucrative. Less new budget or mid range cards being made means that there are almost no options available for regular people who are not able to spend a fortune on graphics cards. 

Because of the massive demands, and very limited supply, the graphics card market imploded. If you take a look around now, the only cards available for purchase are either very old, near worthless cards being sold for 3 times what they’re actually worth, or the very high-end, top of the line cards no one can afford. When I was at the repair shop, I held in my hands a graphics card worth almost 50 million rupiah (3500 USD). It's crazy to think that that little hunk of metal is worth that much money. The idea of “value for money” is destroyed in this current market. 

Now the graphics card is vital to most computers because it is used to render and produce a video output, most machines cannot display images to the screen without it. It is also a crucial component if you want to play games or do some creative work such as rendering videos. Luckily, my computer’s CPU has an integrated graphics system, so it could still output video without a graphics card, but it was still a crushing blow to the overall usability and power of my machine. But throughout the long months, I’ve learned to make my peace with it, and even come to appreciate that I could still do my work and even play some light games with only my CPU. 

I’m not sure how long this shortage will last, will prices ever come back down to normal? Back then I was a huge advocate of building your own PC, instead of buying a pre-built or a laptop. My reasoning was “You can spend half the money you would for a laptop, and get a machine 3 times as powerful.” but that’s just not true anymore. Because of the insane prices of this one crucial component, building a brand new PC is next to impossible, unless you have a ton of money to burn. It’s funny looking at posts in internet forums, of people building these amazing PCs with powerful parts and cool lighting, but the graphics card is conspicuously missing, which renders the whole machine useless, it’s basically just an expensive metal box. Anyway, I hope by 2022 the market will be a little less crazy, and we can get the cards at the intended prices.