The entire Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series remains extremely hard to get hold of, but the cheapest graphics card in the range could potentially become easier to find in stock.
Chinese tech site IT Home reports that Nvidia is quietly planning to feed GeForce RTX 3060 restocks by ramping up production in July. This supply boost will initially be focused on the internet café market, but will allegedly trickle down to general retail as well.
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While it’s unlikely that Nvidia will be able to fully meet demand for its gaming GPUs, in theory a supply boost could help take the pain out of hunting for GeForce RTX 3060 restocks. This model, as well as cards like the GeForce RTX 3080 and much newer GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, has been almost permanently out of stock since launch, as supply shortages bump up against a highly active reseller market and a demand boom from cryptocurrency miners.
Speaking of which, there may be some additional relief for hopeful PC owners, as graphics card prices are plummeting in China following a crackdown on crypto mining farms by the Chinese government. These large farms tend to buy up graphics cards in bulk, causing a scarcity that in turn raises prices, so with their forced closure, GeForce RTX 3060 models have dropped in price by as much as 45%.
Obviously that’s only in China, not the U.S. or U.K., but it does indicate that territorial GPU prices could fall significantly once the current interest in crypto mining wanes. It may also get slightly easier to get lucky with an RTX 30-series restock if Chinese mega-farms aren’t buying and importing cards from overseas retailers.
We’ll have to wait and see, though if nothing else it would be encouraging if Nvidia really can improve graphics cards production. We understand that a components shortage has been largely to blame for the non-availability of the latest graphics cards, both from Nvidia and AMD, so this may be the first sign of returning to normalcy. Or less intense lunacy, anyway.
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