my conspiracy theory on the card shortage: profits are high and the miners who started in March, April, May of 2017, just ROI'd their gear, and with the coin prices high, are potentially doubling down on more gear.
or they bought em up to claim the equipment cost on 2017 taxes?
You read my mind Vapour... I could have just waited until early Jan when a lot of these GPUs are SUPPOSED to come back in stock... but then I would have to wait over a year for the tax write off and I really need that this year lol.
In all fairness though, the OP hits a good point but it's only part of the equation. I suspect a good chunk of the shortage is coming from new miners... those who missed the Q1 explosion but are now keenly aware of this 2nd one that started in Nov. Still, I simply cannot comprehend how AMD especially has completely missed the boat on demand, especially for Vega!
I suspect HBM2 production still isn't ramping up enough to support as much Vega production as AMD would prefer.
I have ZERO doubt that the AMD current shortage/price jumps are mining-related - and same on the Nvidia 1070 (which is seeing AMD cards pushing into it's price area some) and 1070 ti.
Oddly enough there doesn't seem to be any shortage on 1060 cards - though pricing seems to have going up some.
You are correct about HBM2... there are shortages for sure as I have noted this in my job (financial analysis for various types of memory used by my employer). Let's just say that the bosses are none too pleased about 1) can't get enough HBM2 to meet our demand and 1a) what we can get is costing about 30% more than originally projected.
Still, I think even aside from this AMD missed the boat big time. and, the HBM2 issue doesn't explain the Nvidia shortages on their higher end cards. THis is a lot like the market shortage back in Q2. First, all the AMD 4xx & 5xx disappeared then Nvidia was next to go short. I think there are still a lot of people that think AMD first when it comes to mining, given they were clearly the better choice before so many Equihash coins become very profitable to mine with GTX.
Anyway, I have my Vega rig built with just 1 of 3 installed as I am waiting for an electrician to do an assessment on my houses electric capacity before I fully ramp up any more rigs. I also have 3 1070ti's arriving on Friday, so that will start my 6th rig, assuming my house can handle it lol. I feel more confident I can get 2-3 more 1070ti's relatively soon vs the 2-3 Vega's I would still like to get.
Dang! total market cap hovering just below $700B! What an amazing 2nd day of the year!
Yes it became a bit more difficult since the creators update but hey, 5 dollars here, 5 dollars there 
There arent that sturdy so make sure you dont overload them with 12 gpus per level 
