If you've ever tried to buy one of Nvidia's lineup of RTX 30 graphics cards, you've probably come up empty-handed. Demand has greatly outstripped supply, so inventory is quickly running out and prices are skyrocketing in the used marketplace. Thanks to these supply issues, you may have ended up getting the unboxed version. [At Credit Suisse's Digital Financial Services Conference, Colette Kress, CFO of Nvidia, offered some insight into the supply issues the company is facing.

As some have speculated for some time, this is partly due to a shortage of wafers with chips from Samsung Foundry, but not exclusively. Kress explained, "We have supply constraints, and our supply constraints extend beyond what we are seeing in terms of wafers and silicon, but yes, some constraints are in substrates and components." 'But we believe that in the fourth quarter, overall gaming demand will outpace supply.'

'Whole game' is an odd catch-all term, but appropriate. But thanks to the pandemic curfew, people are being forced to spend more time at home. The flip side, of course, is that businesses are struggling to keep up with demand due to similar restrictions and the need for social distancing measures at factories.

In other words, this is a perfect storm of supply and demand out of balance, from millions of people struggling to find where to buy a PS5 or an Xbox Series X to the sudden rush for older Switch hardware we We've seen it.

So in light of all this, when can we expect to order an Nvidia RTX 30 card without having to worry about stiff competition from eager consumers and scalping bots?

"We expect it will probably take a couple of months to catch up with demand, but it's really hard to quantify at this point," Kress continued.

"So we are concentrating on getting parts to the market for this very important holiday season. Every day, the situation continues to improve. But by the end of the quarter, we will be able to provide a little more information."

If this is disappointing to you, you might want to set your alarm for December 8, when the AMD Radeon 6900 XT is scheduled to launch. But despite the company's early optimism, if the 6800's availability is any indication, its $999 RTX 3090 rival is likely to sell out in a flash.