In January 2021, BBC reported about gaming never been more popular! The Steam gaming platform saw records broken for all it's peak statistics in 2020 - 21% more games purchased and 50% more hours played! While this sounds amazing for Steam, avid gamers especially PC gamers were facing a big problem: graphic cards!
What Is The Problem?
While offices might work fine with built-in graphics power, if you do any serious gaming you would need a dedicated graphics card. Afterall it provides better lighting, higher resolution output and more frames per second.
Early in 2020, Chinese manufacturing was temporarily limited due to Covid. Shipping delays then hit the electronic market and the price of Bitcoin made 'mining' more lucrative. This resulted in remarkable scenes around the World. In America, people were seen queing around the block at electronic shops or camping overnight in the hope that they would be able to get a graphics card!
What Is The Latest?
Fast forward over a year later, there is still a shortage! However, the situation is improving. Recent months have brought an increase in GPU supply in European countries which has helped to reduce the price. For example in Germany, the price dropped by as much as 50% from it's peak at the start of 2021! With life returning to 'normal' so might the computer market expansion. It's safe to say we just need to give it more time!
