Novatech: Intel 9th Gen Core Coffee Lake CPUs Could Be In Short Supply For Months
Novatech penned a blog in which it talks about Intel's CPU shortage and how it will affect its operations going forward. According to the company, Intel has seen crushing demand for its Xeon server processors which is straining its manufacturing capacity. Xeons are highly profitable for Intel, so it stands to reason that the company is trying to prioritize production for these processors.
Echoing what we saw with GPU prices when cryptocurrency-mania struck in late 2017 through mid-2018, these CPU shortages are leading to price increases. "The lack of supply has caused pricing to soar over the last two weeks; traders are buying CPU’s from websites and anywhere that they can in order to capitalize on the market situation and fulfill the demand for non-price sensitive customers," writes Novatech. "The results of this are consumers and business customers alike will see an increase in the cost of CPU’s.
"The situation is not set to get any better and we expect to see Intel CPU shortages for the rest of the year. The eagerly anticipated 9th generation launch will also be hit by this and will be scarce supply."
Novatech goes on to state this will be a boon for AMD, which is already enjoying a pricing advantage versus comparable Intel processors along with excellent overall performance. The company has hopes that the shortage can be resolved by early 2019, but there's no guarantee that will happen despite the presence of Intel's Copy Exactly fab in Vietnam.
It's this exact situation that has analysts like Mark Lipacis of research firm Fubon claiming that AMD could triple its CPU market share from roughly 10 percent to 30 percent. There's also the possibility that AMD stands to make huge gains in the lucrative server market with EPYC.
"Fubon's report that Intel will undersupply the PC market between 4Q18 and 2Q19 leaves us with higher conviction that AMD will report improving revenue, pricing and margins near term, and that is positioned to take share in the high-end PC MPU and server market long term," said Lipacis in a research note last week.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on Intel processor availability and pricing following the official announcement of Intel’s 9th generation Core processors, which is expected to take place in early October.
