Importance of Graphic Cards in Pakistan

In 2019, the worldwide ‘Graphic Cards Market’ was valued at 19.75 billion USD, with a CAGR of 33.6%. And in 2027 the value will increase up to 200.85 billion!

What has caused this rise? The global pandemic!

Importance of graphic cards in Pakistan

Pakistan’s situation is the same as around the world. The pandemic brought us closer in some of the best and worst ways. When the zoom days began, as did the demands for a computer, laptop, and everything that goes inside it (depending on your job; if you were lucky enough to keep it). The boost in demands for PCs left the chip makers biting their nails.

We use Graphic Cards for:

Crypto mining

Originally crypto mining was done using CPU. But the limited clock speed and high power consumption demanded an upgrade. This is where the GPUs came in; a standard GPU provides 800 times more clock speed than a CPU. It is favorable because while mining, you need to perform repetitive calculations and run multiple hash codes; these tasks are, sometimes done, simultaneously. A GPU comes equipped with additional ALUs (Arithmetic Logic Units), which means the computer can perform better and faster calculations and speed up the mining process.

Online working

Even if your job does not revolve around maximizing your PC’s potential, a graphic card is still an attractive purchase. It makes your computer perform smoother, faster and overall give it a better performance. Jobs such as graphic designing, application developer, game developer, virtualization and anything that has to do with video encoding and processing demand graphic cards. Tasks such as video rendering cannot be performed without a graphic card.

Gaming

The most common market for GPUs is gaming. In gaming, sometimes the GPU is more important than a CPU since it’s the part that renders the scenes, videos and images which the screen display. It boosts up the performance by freeing the memory. As the GPU has its community of ALUs, it takes care of the mathematical tasks and frees up the CPU to perform other tasks; this prevents our computers from overheating as well. Gamers often enjoy streaming, and they want the highest quality for their viewers to make it pleasing for their eyes. GPU ensures better graphics and smoother animation throughout games.

What is the chip shortage of 2021?

In 2021 steam – a platform for gamers – saw record-breaking numbers in 2020, 21% more games bought and 50% more hours spent gaming. The use of graphic cards during the pandemic significantly increased. Stay-at-home work is a dream for gamers who are in love with their computers already. So after their work, a few clicks would have them in their online wonderland.

When offices downsized, many people lost their jobs; they took two common routes. The first was to pursue gaming as a profession, and the second was mining cryptocurrency – both require powerful graphic cards.

The graphic cards have gotten strenuous to get a hold of due to their rising demands. The production of graphic cards has remained the same before the pandemic. People from the gaming, animation, and bitcoin mining industry, would line up and camp outside of stores for hours, sometimes even days, to get their hands on the best graphic processing unit.

Why did we buy that many?

When it comes to jobs that require a graphic processing unit, the market has shot high solely because developers have had to work from home.For example, A team of two developers is working on two different projects at different times. So they use the same computer and resume their work after the other person is done. Now that we have to work from home, the PC stays at the office, and both Sally and Joe have to buy a new graphic card. It has occurred on a larger scale and eventually led to the dried GPU market.

NVIDIA

In 2020, when the Nintendo Switch got released, the console sold out quickly, and their stock dried up soon. But the demand remained the same (only steady increases), so they were able to meet their goals and the books balanced out for them. However, when it comes to the worldwide demand for Graphic cards, the growth was exponential.

The NVIDIA 3000 series launched the first-of-it’s-kind graphic processing unit, which had a 50% to 90% improvement from the previous generations.

The only way anyone was able to get their hands on this card (or any other card) was by risking it on a sketchy website. Or paying inflated prices or purchasing it for a lot higher than the original price. That is if they can get their hands on it.

When we study the current situation we learn that Nvidia and AMD are unable to produce graphic cards. To make a graphic card, a semiconductor material is required. Which they order months, sometimes years, in advance. They order to match the regular numbers of demand.

However, when the pandemic hit, that number became anything but normal. The demand for these cards peaked and the semiconductor cannot be made available in a day. When the deliveries started getting delayed, even the regular number of cards weren’t able to be produced. So the demand was rising but the production was decreasing.

Related: 7 Easy Steps to Get Started with Cryptocurrency in Pakistan

Now What?

The Graphic card fall is predicted to prolong in 2022 as well. This isn’t just a problem for new products, even super-exclusive cards have become difficult to come across. As for the old ones, when people aren’t able to find the best ones, they opt for the second best and the cycle continues.

Nvidia’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress addressed “Gaming demand is off the charts. Our overall capacity has not been able to keep up”.

It is a similar story for AMD, Lisa Su, the company boss, when asked for a statement regarding the GPU crisis responded with, “it’s rather than manufacturing issues”.

HouseofPakistan

Why Are We Seeing Huge Spike in Graphic Cards in Pakistan?