NVIDIA RTX 30 series is aggravating PSU shortage

Tom's Hardware argues the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 series is aggravating PSU shortages. The site notes power supply production was severely disrupted earlier this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when demand for desktop PCs unexpectedly increased. Higher PSU prices are expected and the increased maximum power draw of NVIDIA's Ampere GPU family isn't good news if you need a new PSU right now.

Since the Nvidia Ampere Keynote, we've known the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 are going to be absolute power suckers, Nvidia itself recommends a bare minimum of a 750W power supply for the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, but you'll need larger power supplies for some systems. Our testing backs that up, too; we observed up to a 335W average power draw from just the 3080. This means many of us will need new power supplies, unfortunately right during a PSU shortage that has sent pricing skyward on some models (more on that shortly).