Motherboard Everything is out of stock or marked up?

[dche]

Hello,

I'm looking to build a PC using the Ncase m1. I'm looking for motherboard suggestions. I'm also wondering if anyone else notices lot of PC parts, especially SFF, are out of stock? Or have been marked up significantly? I'm wondering how much a mini-ITX motherboard should cost as the prices are all in the high 200s from maybe not so reliable sellers, but unsure how much it normally is.

Does anyone have any idea or prediction when parts are expected to return to normal inventory? I imagine the coronavirus and chinese lunar new year and difficulty shipping because of medical supplies replacing much cargo is hurting inventory.

 

[confusis]

The world's supply chain has been shattered by COVID-19. A significant portion of freight goes in the holds of passenger aircraft - and with significantly (>60%) less of those flights, freight capacity has tanked. As you remarked, medical supplies also has increased in demand, so that hits the freight market even more.

As an example, Taiwan Post (a major source country for our hobby) is currently not shipping to;
Afghanistan, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Congo - Brazzaville, Congo - Kinshasa, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Côte d’Ivoire, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Guam, Guatemala, Hawaii, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nauru, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela

This is only just the export side. With many people stuck at home, online shopping has seen significant growth, adding to the load on Postal Systems that likely are already struggling with social distancing regulations and reduced staff.

Case in point; I bought a CPU and RAM from a person in Australia, the neighbouring country to New Zealand. It took two MONTHS to leave Australia because of the severely reduced freight capacity.

Not only that, but factories, stores and supply chains have shut down in many regions, in turn ensuring out of stock products. Supply/demand = higher prices, alas.

I predict a return to normal when COVID isn't accelerating around the world, so...... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Remy17]

Yeah sourcing parts right now is a bit frustrating for a number of reasons, primarily of course the COVID-19 situation and how that froze supply chains coming out of Asia. The availability of space on commercial and freight flights was down during all of these lockdowns and probably only started seeing a slight uptick recently. I ordered the Ncase and was not expecting to get it until July but it arrived in a week (to New York City), so depending on where you are items might start trickling in quickly. I got a Strix 570-I by monitoring an online store pretty much all day and paid the MSRP for it, but they were sold out a day later. The other issue clearly stems from what I call parts scalpers that are buying up whatever does come up listed to resell at over inflated prices. I found a similar issue with the SP power supplies which was more complicated due to the recall. But the way around that is to order from a company like Corsair directly because you are getting the actual price and know you are not buying one of the possibly defective batch that people hoarded for resale.

 

[nutsforalmonds]

I'm in the position to having all my parts more or less ordered, but I have no idea when they're arriving. I also got an Ncase in what seemed ludicroudly fast time. Less than 2 weeks from ordering, less than 5 days from the date on the export sticker to my doorstep.

B&H (NYC based shop), for example, has the MSI B550I available for preorder (and has for several days now) while no other retailer I've seen has even put up pre-order, expected availability, or anything. Finding a Corsair SF600 Platinum has been literally weeks of camping and refreshing 6 store tabs every few hours in my browser. I managed to get one ordered on Corsair's website (MSRP, sold out within 2 hours), but got an email saying they do additional payment verification and my order can't be confirmed before that is complete (I assume everyone gets this message). Does this mean the part is reserved, or does someone who completes verification first get the part first? Luckily I also found an SF600 Platinum on Amazon (literally only one at slightly below MSRP, sold by Amazon, I bought it and the price jumped back to the $300+ scalper price). Estimated delivery end of July.

I'll cancel whatever order ends up shipping later, but even as a non-scalper, I have 2 identical products possibly locked down and away from other builders because of the uncertainty around shipping and the generally slower pace of everything happening as hours are cut and people work from home.

 

[Remy17]

The Corsair 750s are still in stock, and mine is on the way, but I paid through Amazon, and it was cleared for payment quickly. I would buy the 750 from Corsair directly for the 185 price tag before I overpaid for a 600 or similar model from someone else. I honestly think that what is going on now is like the video card hoarding that happened a few years ago when bitcoin mining was a fad. I have been building computers for years and have never seen things this ridiculous as far as availability and markups are concerned. DYI computers might have drawn in more people, but the average buyers do not have the money or general knowledge to stockpile computer components just to have. This feels like greedy opportunists taking advantage of the situation and using the online shopping system to create artificial scarcity and capitalize.

Right now, the best bet is to catch items when they restock and only buy them from known vendors and not third parties reselling on a merchant portal. When purchasing from Amazon or even Newegg, it is important to make sure the product is shipping from them at the MSRP price and is actually available. The sellers that inflate prices should not be rewarded for plain greed, and as newer parts are released I sincerely hope the unscrupulous people in the secondary market get stuck with products that cannot sell.

 

[dche]

Is there a list of retailers to recommend that have inventory, particularly itx motherboards and PSUs? Those parts particularly seem to be out.
I also ordered Ncase and that seems to be okay actually.

I wonder if there are components in certain parts that make them more out of stock than others, why there's disruptions in some but not others.

Newegg, Microcenter, Tigerdirect (no real options?) Amazon, Best Buy (not many options?) BH. Are there any other retailers out there I'm missing?

I'm curious what the word is out there when inventory will come back, if anyone has heard. One retailer said they were expecting B550 mobos later this week, but not entirely sure. It's kind of frustrating to see people with low reliability mark up so drastically, it's akin to the people who hoarded and price gouged hand sanitizer and PPE during COVID-19. Of course PC hardware is nowhere as near essential. I'm not under any pressure to buy at such high markups and can wait it out, don't want to give those swindlers satisfaction, but I suspect some will pay $260 for a B450i motherboard, which I saw someone on Craigslist sell for, had whole bunch of them. So yeah there are people who are hoarding and marking up.

 

[Remy17]

At this point the only thing I have found that works is setting alerts from places like Newegg and Microcenter to tell you when parts are in and then jump on them as fast as you can. With Amazon and Newegg you have to make sure the item is actually shipped from them to avoid dealing with other possibly shady vendors. I got the motherboard I needed by just monitoring Newegg for a few days and lucked up by getting one before they sold out. The PSU situation for the ITX was bad because of the COVID-19 situation and then Corsair recall on top of it. I got my PSU direct from Corsair because I did not want to risk getting a possibly bad one from the recall lot from a third party seller.

As for availability it seems like some things are listed as coming in at the end of this month and beginning of July, but if people still buy everything up for resale then there is always going to be an artificial scarcity for the people who actually just want to build a computer. Newegg tries to limit purchase but I am sure those who want to game the system find a way around that. Microcenter tends to make a lot of their stuff in store purchase only and stores in some areas seem to be better stocked then others right now, but with parts of the United States opening up more (for now) hopefully there will be more choices out there.

 

[lpd2]

Patiently waiting buying parts still no mobo either but managed to find a 5700xt blower style on ebay, FSP Dagger pro 650w psu on amazon, noctua cooler (amazon), and some hifi headphones w/dac-amp all for decent prices. Only the PSU was above msrp and appears design will work about the same as all those builds using corsair units. It looks like the b550 mobos are on preorder on bhphoto. I would get one but my CPU only part not upgrading /downsizing. x570 or bust.

 

[dche]

Patiently waiting buying parts still no mobo either but managed to find a 5700xt blower style on ebay, FSP Dagger pro 650w psu on amazon, noctua cooler (amazon), and some hifi headphones w/dac-amp all for decent prices. Only the PSU was above msrp and appears design will work about the same as all those builds using corsair units. It looks like the b550 mobos are on preorder on bhphoto. I would get one but my CPU only part not upgrading /downsizing. x570 or bust.

ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/TB3 Motherboard - Newegg.com

Buy ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/TB3 Mini ITX Thunderbolt 3 AMD Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

ASRock looks like in stock for now but may go quick, either today or tomorrow out

ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming ITX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com

Buy ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s Mini ITX AMD Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

ASRock seems to sell out slower, are they a worse brand than the others?
Sometimes I wonder if the limits on amounts can purchase reflects their inventory.

 

[nutsforalmonds]

I ordered 2 Corsair SF600 plats on the same day a week ago, one from Corsair, one sold and shipped by Amazon (as I posted above). Today I got an email from Corsair telling me the product will be unavailable until mid August to early September. I also got an email from Amazon today telling me me that their quote of having it ship July 18th got moved up to June 30th. *shrugs*

 

[Remy17]

I ordered 2 Corsair SF600 plats on the same day a week ago, one from Corsair, one sold and shipped by Amazon (as I posted above). Today I got an email from Corsair telling me the product will be unavailable until mid August to early September. I also got an email from Amazon today telling me me that their quote of having it ship July 18th got moved up to June 30th. *shrugs*

My Corsair power supply is coming today and the delivery date for the 2070 Super GPU I managed to order from Amazon magically changed delivery dates from July to this week. Still skeptical about that video card since it was on sale for about three hours and sold out, but fingers crossed. The bad part about all of this is that since I was sure I was not getting most of these parts anytime before July I still did not get a CPU ? This is the most bass ackwards build I have done and the COVID-19 situation combined with how weird the marketplace is has turned this for fun build into a combination scavenger hunt and Let's Make a Deal.

 

[revo175]

I ordered 2 Corsair SF600 plats on the same day a week ago, one from Corsair, one sold and shipped by Amazon (as I posted above). Today I got an email from Corsair telling me the product will be unavailable until mid August to early September. I also got an email from Amazon today telling me me that their quote of having it ship July 18th got moved up to June 30th. *shrugs*

I ordered directly from Corsair, shipped and should be delivered tomorrow I guess hope this one is not on the recall list.

MoBo is still in back order.

 

[ignsvn]

Everything is out of stock or marked up?

Both

 

[lpd2]

post deleted

 

[Phuncz]

@lpd2 your question should be posted in one of the cases you are most interested in, this topic isn't the place for that. Also it's off-topic.