[JollySharp0]

Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one. I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year. They were constantly out of stock.

> That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon.

How does that invalidate anything I said? As states in the article this will change, it will take years but it isn't forever.

I find it hard to believe that people here cannot make do with whatever hardware they already have.

I also don't believe those small SBCs would have survived long term anyway. Most people just use a Raspberry PI. It is either a MiniPC or a Raspberry PI.

[meroes]

Ya I mean gfx card was pretty bad during Covid.

Discord groups that had real-time line counts and pictures of the line at most best buys across the country (US).

The only way I got one was overpaying and a lottery system that bundled it with other hardware because they knew everyone would still buy it. It was impossible to buy online normally as you needed some kind of automated way to buy it before stock zeroed the minute it was posted.

You could pay a scalper for a gfx card, but stores had none. Now, stores have RAM at least.

[Dylan16807]

> Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one.

You're comparing to memory sticks that went up 6x. If you were offering anywhere near 6x MSRP and you couldn't get a video card... I don't believe you.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/scalpers-have-sold-50000-nvidia-r...

https://www.pcmag.com/news/read-it-and-weep-heres-how-bad-nv...

These show GPUs available for 1.5-2.5x price, which fits what I remember.

> I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year.

https://picockpit.com/raspberry-pi/why-are-raspberry-pi-pric...

I didn't look into Pi prices a whole lot, but this suggests they were continuously available for 2-3x price.

[JollySharp0]

I am in the UK. Not the US!

> If you were offering 5x MSRP and you couldn't get a video card... I don't believe you.

My 1080Ti had died. I had to use a 8800GTS from the late 2000s for about a year. As that was the only GPU I had. I have no iGPU on my CPU.

There was at one time, no stock available. Not on Amazon, Not on Overclockers, Not on Scan. They had some weird lotto system taking place on most sites.

Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay.

> Unless this article is massively misleading, sure it was out of stock at 1x price but it wasn't out of stock at 2-3x price.

Again I am in the UK. You could not buy any PI other than 1GB model and maybe the zero. Both of which were useless to me.

[kelnos]

> Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay.

Ah, so you could have bought one, but you judged the available suppliers to be too risky.

Completely fair, but then it's not true that you couldn't buy one "at any price". It was just not a price+risk that you were willing to take.

Also, re: Raspberry Pis, you couldn't always get the exact RAM configuration you wanted, but they were pretty continuously available during COVID on Aliexpress. You did have to pay 3-5x normal price, but you could do it. I really needed one after one at home died, and paid the 3x markup, and it was annoying but fine. Not sure if Aliexpress is equally as available in the UK as it is here in the US, though.

[JollySharp0]

> Completely fair, but then it's not true that you couldn't buy one "at any price". It was just not a price+risk that you were willing to take.

You are being pedantic. I find this type of discussion very tiresome. I've explained why in other forks of this thread. Quite honestly it pisses me off.

> Also, re: Raspberry Pis, you couldn't always get the exact RAM configuration you wanted, but they were pretty continuously available during COVID on Aliexpress. You did have to pay 3-5x normal price, but you could do it. I really needed one after one at home died, and paid the 3x markup, and it was annoying but fine. Not sure if Aliexpress is equally as available in the UK as it is here in the US, though.

Not in the UK. Someone was running a site with all the places that you could buy from. I was checking most days. Stock was extremely limited other than a few models.

[bonzog]

>Not in the UK.

This was my experience, too. Pis would disappear from online retailers before you noticed the stock alert email.

I only got hold of a Pi 4 by chance when Raspberry Pi did an official pop-up store in Southampton for one day only. The queue to get in was about 45 mins long.

[Dylan16807]

Okay, UK, maybe that changes things more than I expected. But what about ebay and the sites that replaced classified ads? And is it unreasonable for me to say that you could have bought a US listing and had it reshipped?

Edit since you added: Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay.

Even with ebay's buyer protection?

Well not to be mean but I think "I refused to use ebay" invalidates your claim that you couldn't buy a card.

[JollySharp0]

> Even with ebay's buyer protection?

I've had problems with it before (I can't remember specifics as it was a while ago). I'd rather not going through the hassle and/or risk in the first place.

There are still plenty of scams on ebay. During this era there were people scamming. e.g the box for a GPU. Listing the entire specs and then putting right at the bottom of the listing it was only the box and not the card.

> Well not to be mean but I think "I refused to use ebay" invalidates your claim that you couldn't buy a card.

What you are doing is being hyper-pedantic. It is fucking tiresome when people do this online.

If you are going to be a smart arse, I will modify my statement to say "I could not get a card from a reputable online store as they were all out of stock and did not wish to risk buying from a less reputable one".

I would be foolish to trust some overpriced (or underpriced) listing on ebay. I've had an ebay/paypal account now for 25+ years, I've learned to never do this because I got screwed every time I did.

[kelnos]

> What you are doing is being hyper-pedantic. It is fucking tiresome when people do this online.

That's not pedantry. There's a huge difference between "they were unavailable and I couldn't get one at any price" and "I could have bought one from a scalper but I didn't trust them". Even if it's reasonable not to trust them (it is!), the first statement is sensational, and untrue, especially considering you emphasized "at any price" in your comment upthread.

> If you are going to be a smart arse, I will modify my statement to say "I could not get a card from a reputable online store as they were all out of stock and did not wish to risk buying from a less reputable one".

That's what you should have said in the first place; that would have been honest and correct.

And please, there's no need to call the other poster names. That's uncalled-for and childish. You seem to be new here (9-day-old account), so please read the site guidelines and turn it down a notch or three.

[JollySharp0]

> That's not pedantry. There's a huge difference between "they were simply unavailable and I couldn't get one at any price" and "I could have bought one from a scalper but I didn't trust them". Even if it's reasonable not to trust them (it is!), the first statement is sensational, and untrue, especially considering you emphasized "at any price" in your original comment.

It is for any normal person in relatively normal setting.

Only amongst technical people is this sort of discourse tolerated where someone pretends that an unreasonable option (the scalper in this case as you admitted yourself) should be included in a statement when it is perfectly obvious it should not be included because it is not in any way reasonable.

I could have flown to the US and bought a card or China. Is that reasonable? For most people it isn't reasonable. It wasn't for me. Buying from an untrustworthy seller, is unreasonable.

> the first statement is sensational, and untrue, especially considering you emphasized "at any price" in your original comment.

They were out of stock on every reputable site. Therefore I could not buy a card at any price from them because they didn't exist.

> That's what you should have said in the first place; that would have been honest and correct.

I was honest and correct to begin with. The poster was using prices and availability in the US and not the UK.

> And please, there's no need to call the other poster names.

I never called them names. I expressed my annoyance at their behaviour.

[Dylan16807]

I wasn't trying to be a smart arse at all. "I couldn't get a new card from a store" and "I couldn't get a card at all" are extremely different claims in my mind.

I'd rate my pedantry level as quite low. From my point of view this is not a nitpick.

Especially because you emphasized "at any price". It's the scalpers and the used market that were selling at any price. Sticking to reputable stores means sticking close to MSRP.

[JollySharp0]

Buying from scalpers and other untrustworthy people like thieves and other toerags is unreasonable.

I would expect people to understand that unreasonable options should be omitted from conversation.

There was no stock at any of the online outlets that are commonly used in the UK when it came to GPUs for what seemed like a long time.

> I'd rate my pedantry level as quite low. From my point of view this is not a nitpick.

"I have investigated myself and found that I did nothing wrong".