The 20,000 is probably pretty close to accurate, so if the 16M number sold is accurate why has there been such an impact on the video card market? You can't reliably find 5850s, 5870s, 5970s, or 6990s in stock anywhere, and even 5830s are going. If we're only .1% of the market, it shouldn't have had that big of an effect. Does that mean there is like 50k G/hash in cards purchased recently and still waiting to come online?
It's possible, and I know I'm part of it since I bought 27 cards in the past week
Pretty simple really, 5xxx series cards are all last gen. They stopped being produced/bought/stocked half a year (or more) ago. Look online for 6xxx gen cards, they are a little more expensive, don't hash quite as well, but they're still very good hashing cards, they are not out of stock anywhere. The reason is that this is what is being bought up and stocked by retailers, not older generation technology. The market is pushed by gamers, and gamers don't want old stuff, they want new stuff. We managed to scrape up the dregs of what was left over and unwanted.
There is a fairly large used card market, and thats where you'll find some older gen cards, though people are snapping those up now admittedly. But check ebay as an example, there are still > 100 5870s for sale on any given day. At bloated prices, but they're there.
