"I was hoping things would settle but it doesn't appear to be the case."
I've come to the conclusion that it's not going to 'settle' for a long time. Not until competition arrives from new foundries (several years out, although they _are_ being planned and built) and competition from Intel and their GPU platform appears and eventually becomes competitive. So your wait will be a couple years longer.
Proof Of Stake with Ethereum won't change anything. There are many other POW block chains around and people invested in GPUs farming will migrate, find profit and continue indulging their livelihoods. COVID isn't going away and isn't really causing any of this to begin with; it's just the go-to excuse for every complaint.
The real problem is obvious to me; the manufacturers, particularly those in Western countries, have been on a 20 year long lemming-like off-shoring race to Taiwan and S. Korea foundries and now there is a foundry oligopoly and competition no longer exists. Prices go up. Big surprise. And it won't return to 'normal' anytime soon.
With that in mind I bit the bullet ordered up all the parts for my new machine two weeks ago; $3k with a 3070 TI GPU. About a week after my order the the exact same GPU appeared in stock from the exact same reseller with a $200 price hike. The prices aren't going down. They're going up.
Update: that GPU is about $250 more now than what I paid on 8/6.
The worst part of all of this is now my PC is this precious asset. Used to be a GPU could die and "meh, whatever... could have used an update anyhow." Now I feel the need to pay for a 'protection' plan.
The good part of just paying the cost is now I'm no longer involved in 'newegg shuffle' nonsense or participating in 24/7 Live Stock Watcher videos on YouTube[1]. How messed up is that?
Everybody saw Intel slacking off a decade ago including Apple and Google but Google didn't have the guts to start their own CPU design Department despite being the #5 largest computer maker on Earth!
Very true. But they have hedged that very well with long-term contracts, so they are effectively first in line for most of their needs. I would guess that this is still biting them on some components (they have so many in so many products), but they appear to be riding through this pretty well.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not going to 'settle' for a long time. Not until competition arrives from new foundries (several years out, although they _are_ being planned and built) and competition from Intel and their GPU platform appears and eventually becomes competitive. So your wait will be a couple years longer.
Proof Of Stake with Ethereum won't change anything. There are many other POW block chains around and people invested in GPUs farming will migrate, find profit and continue indulging their livelihoods. COVID isn't going away and isn't really causing any of this to begin with; it's just the go-to excuse for every complaint.
The real problem is obvious to me; the manufacturers, particularly those in Western countries, have been on a 20 year long lemming-like off-shoring race to Taiwan and S. Korea foundries and now there is a foundry oligopoly and competition no longer exists. Prices go up. Big surprise. And it won't return to 'normal' anytime soon.
With that in mind I bit the bullet ordered up all the parts for my new machine two weeks ago; $3k with a 3070 TI GPU. About a week after my order the the exact same GPU appeared in stock from the exact same reseller with a $200 price hike. The prices aren't going down. They're going up.