Where Have the GPUs Gone? Footage From Dubai Gives a Hint

There is a shortage of graphics cards on the market, and their prices are shocking. Where have AMD Radeon RX chip shipments disappeared to?

Youtuber Coreteks has released a video showing a stock of GPUs from brands like Sapphire, PowerColor and XFX. The stock visible in the video belongs to a Dubai-based company specializing in selling dedicated cryptocurrency mining rigs (ASICs). As you can see, there is a whole range of AMD hardware available. In the absence of the latest GeForce RTX 3060/3090 on the market, as well as older and less powerful models such as the Radeon RX 580, the matter may appall gamers. One of the effects of the massive buybacks are the astronomical prices of units still available on the market.

Where does all this hardware come from? We don't know. It is impossible to trace the source of the cards without serial numbers. They probably come directly from AIB partners - companies that buy chips from AMD and then assemble complete graphics cards on PCBs (e.g. XFX). No GPU manufacturer has yet addressed the issue.

Problems with availability and high prices of GPUs are nothing new, The whole market of components using modern chips is facing a serious crisis. There are several reasons for this and one of them is the wholesale buying of GPUs used to create cryptocurrency mining rigs.