PC component supply nightmare could soon end... except for graphics cards

techradar.com:

PC components could soon see a much better situation in terms of supply meeting demand according to a new report – but a few areas could still remain troublesome to an extent, including graphics cards.

As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Counterpoint Research recently published stats on global PC shipments (which fell 4.3% year-on-year in Q1 2022), complete with an observation that the component shortage is very much set to ease in the second half of this year.

The Counterpoint report states: “Since late 2021, demand-supply gaps have been narrowing, signaling an approaching end to supply tightness across the broader ecosystem. Among all PCs and laptops, the supply gap for the most important components such as power management ICs, Wi-Fi and I/O interface IC has narrowed.”

In fact, as we head towards H2 2022, just four areas of the wider PC component market will remain short on supply, and even those will only be around 10% adrift of meeting demand going by Counterpoint’s estimates (whereas in 2021, supply was falling short of demand by up to 20% or even 30% in some areas, causing big problems as we’ve seen most obviously with graphics cards last year).

Sadly, one of those troublesome areas that could remain a thorny prospect which the report highlights is GPUs, with supply still not predicted to meet demand later in 2022. Other problem areas will be Power Management Integrated Circuit for LCDs (monitors), as well as some motherboard components and Wi-Fi chips.

The major area of concern for the PC ecosystem here, then, is that graphics cards are not flagged for a full recovery this year. But then, a full return to normal is one thing, and a perhaps marginal (sub-10%) supply deficit – maybe within certain categories or price brackets