Added comments from Ted Pollack, senior analyst at John Peddie Research, July 15.

High-end PC gaming will recover from the supply problems that have plagued our hobby over the past year and a half and be in healthy shape. The latest PC gaming hardware report from noted analyst firm Jon Peddie Research describes this recovery with a certain optimism as something to rejoice about.

And the prospect of actually being able to afford a new high-end graphics card will no doubt be welcomed by many silicon-hungry PC gamers. JPR predicts steady growth in the high-end hardware market, from a starting point of just over $20 billion in 2020 JPR predicts steady growth in the high-end hardware market, from a starting point of just over $20 billion in 2020 to a maximum of $45 billion by 2024.

Hooray. The drought will soon be over and we can all be happy that the graphics card of our dreams is just a click away, not a stream of bots or soaring sticker prices on eBay away.

However, the preface to this report also contains the following weighty warning about supply problems:

"Gamers on average budgets do not always get what they need, and newcomers have forsaken or even worse, abandoned the platform and hobby Sometimes, they had to wait for the right time to get the right platform or hobby. New entrants are critical to the long-term health of gaming platforms. It is a stark warning to hardware companies in the PC gaming space that long-term growth depends on their ability to get and price their products within the reach of mass consumers"

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And there is no doubt that modern high-end GPUs are not affordable to the majority of us.

Trying to find a mid-range graphics card is out of luck right now. With companies fighting to keep their inventory on the shelves, they are concentrating on high-end cards with higher profit margins. And it's capitalism.

r/nvidia has pictures almost daily of Micro Center and Best Buy shelves filled with GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or GeForce RTX 3090 cards.

This may not be just a short-term situation; Jon Peddie, head of JPR himself, has stated that "high-end graphics cards (add-in boards) hold their MSRP well and can be sold as mid-range products for several years after manufacture." This may encourage manufacturers to aggressively stock high-end inventory levels to prevent what we have seen since the COVID-19 lockdown began. [This could be a concern of all kinds for those who can't afford to spend $700+ on a new GPU and have come to rely on mainstream heroes like the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT or GeForce GTX 1650 Super for their gaming rigs.

Traditionally, this type of sub-$200 graphics card has been a volume play for manufacturers. However, if manufacturers start betting on future supply problems by overstocking high-end GPUs, the budget PC gamer will be left out in the cold.

However, report author Ted Pollak noted that JPR "anticipates additional inventory at the high end, but not at the expense of the midrange segment."

Perhaps manufacturers will actively stock more affordable GPUs as well as high-end graphics cards, but what the current inventory shortage has taught us is that if there are only high-end options, they will be bought. This is a dangerous lesson, however, and could be catastrophic for the hobby if manufacturers take this short-term effect as a permanent condition.

But it also feels like it comes from the top down. For example, where are the RTX 3050 and RX 6600 cards from Nvidia and AMD?" There is a limit to the number of GPUs that can be manufactured by Samsung and TSMC, respectively, and if all the expensive, high-margin GPUs that they manufactured were sold out, they would not be willing to take some of that supply to manufacture the same number of less expensive cards instead. They would not be willing to take a portion of the quantity out of the supply to manufacture the same number of less expensive cards instead.

Pollak reiterated Peddie's statement that if the high-end cards do not sell, they can be sold as mid-range cards a year or more later. That would alleviate the situation a bit; it might affect the company's profit margin a bit on the GPU part, but if we can't supply all the parts we need when push comes to shove, then the profit margin of the business as a whole becomes an issue."

From a long-term perspective, that makes sense. But we need to remember what happened the last time there was a shortage of GPUs and Nvidia and AMD increased their supply of cards to compensate; Nvidia and AMD ended up with a large supply of unwanted GPUs when the demand for crypto decryption subsided, and while they tried to lower inventory levels and considerably delayed subsequent generations.

It remains to be seen whether manufacturers will try to hold onto their excess high-end inventory after the next generation of GPUs is released. Certainly, that was not the approach taken last time.

But times are different now. How different will be seen when the true mainstream GPUs of this generation are released. With sufficient inventory alongside high-end cards, manufacturers will find themselves willing to take a potential hit. [But in the end, even if the supply shortage is resolved, it will still take some time for the industry to normalize for PC gamers with limited budgets. Well, here's hoping it normalizes anyway.