After January’s muted Golden Globes ceremony signalled a dramatic fall from grace for the once esteemed awards body, the BAFTAs have firmly established themselves as the most important precursor to the Oscars race in any given year.

Not only do the British-awarded trophies now sit a comfortable second to any Academy Awards listed on the resumes, Wikipedia entries and obituaries of actors and filmmakers, but they also now represent the biggest indicator of where those Academy Awards will end up come the end of March.

So, with this year’s BAFTAs done and dusted, what do the results tell us about the 2022 Oscars race?

Long story short: expect an Academy Awards ceremony on March 28 of few surprises. We’ll be discussing the outcome of the big four BAFTA trophies (Best Film, Best Director, Lead Actor and Lead Actress) and what this means for their respective Oscar equivalents below, but the tale of the tape has us anticipating headline wins for Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog and craft hauls for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (Benedict Cumberbatch, though, doesn’t look likely to snag a long-awaited Best Actor Oscar).

Best Picture

The BAFTAs’ equivalent to Best Picture, Best Film, was awarded to Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog at the London ceremony – and it’d be a huge upset to see the Academy Award go anywhere else come March 28. The critically-acclaimed Netflix movie – which tells the story of a menacing rancher (Benedict Cumberbatch) who doesn’t take kindly to the arrival of his brother’s new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and her son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) – has been the odds-on favorite to take home Best Picture since the nominations were announced last month, with only Kenneth Brannagh’s Belfast nipping at its heels.

Brannagh may find some solace in the knowledge that the BAFTAs’ Best Film winner has been – prior to Nomadland last year – different to the eventual Best Picture winner for six years running, but Campion’s movie has all the momentum it needs to bag the double this year.

Best Director

Unsurprisingly, the same is true of Jane Campion herself. Having taken home the BAFTA for Best Director, the New Zealand-born filmmaker is a shoo-in to pick up the same award at this year’s Oscars for her brilliant work on The Power of the Dog.

The other nominees in this category include the aforementioned Kenneth Branagh (for Belfast), Ryusuke Hamaguchi (for Drive My Car), Paul Thomas Anderson (for Licorice Pizza) and Steven Spielberg (for West Side Story), but not even the legendary status of the latter looks likely to cause an upset here.

Best Actor

Perhaps the biggest story to emerge from this year’s BAFTAs ceremony, Will Smith took home the Lead Actor trophy for his performance as Richard Williams in King Richard. Having already snagged several acting gongs on the awards circuit this year, Smith’s triumph wasn’t entirely unexpected – but it was thought that home field advantage may have favored The Power of the Dog’s Benedict Cumberbatch in this category.

As the psychologically troubled rancher Phil Burbank, Cumberbatch’s performance deserves as much recognition as Smith’s, though the latter’s triumph on both sides of the pond suggests Cumberbatch won’t be walking away with an Oscar this year.

Best Actress

For our money, the only one of the big four Oscars not to share the result of its BAFTA equivalent this year will be Best Actress – because, well, it’d be impossible to do so. In a rare occurrence, none of the six women nominated for the Lead Actress BAFTA (Licorice Pizza‘s Alana Haim, House of Gucci‘s Lady Gaga, CODA‘s Emilia Jones, The Worst Person in the World‘s Renate Reinsve and After Love‘s Joanna Scanlan) were nominated for an Oscar.

Scanlan took home the trophy on the night, but Kristen Stewart remains the favorite to win Best Actress at this year’s Academy Awards for her performance as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer. Nicole Kidman, nominated for her work on Being the Ricardos, also has a shot at Oscars glory, as does the Eyes of Tammy Faye‘s Jessica Chastain. The Lost Daughter‘s Olivia Colman and Parallel Mothers’ Penelope Cruz make up the remaining five nominees – and in truth, any one of them deserves the trophy this year.

Breath of the Wild 2: everything we know so far

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is probably the most highly-anticipated Nintendo Switch exclusive and it’s currently in development with an expected spring 2023 release.

As the sequel to the beloved 2017 Nintendo Switch launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , expectations for Breath of the Wild 2 are understandably pretty high.

Thing is, we’re expecting a whole lot from a game we currently don’t know a huge amount about. After all, we’re still waiting to learn what Breath of the Wild 2’s real title is and we don’t have anything more solid than a spring 2023 window with regards to its release date.

We’re hoping to see some more updates on the game through this year, with our eyes particularly focused on summer. Although E3 2022 is canceled , the all-digital Summer Game Fest is still on the cards and it’s become a popular platform for big announcements. Breath of the Wild 2 news would certainly be big.

So far, most of what we’ve learned about Breath of the Wild 2 has come from the trailers that have been released. It’s safe to say the footage of Link navigating the skies of Hyrule has us intrigued.

While we wait for more official news, we've rounded up everything you need to know about Breath of the Wild 2 right here, including details on its delay, what we've gleaned from trailers so far, and all the latest news and rumors.

Breath of the Wild 2: cut to the chase

Breath of the Wild 2 release date and platforms

We initially thought that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would release sometime in 2022. But Nintendo has updated fans with the bad news: it's now looking at a spring 2023 release.

Series producer, Eiji Aonuma, made the announcement in March 2022, saying:

"I have an update to share on the launch timing of the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

We previously announced that we were aiming for a 2022 release for this game. However, we have decided to extend out development time a bit and change the release to Spring 2023."

The delay will allow Nintendo to "make this game's experience something special."

Breath of the Wild 2 trailers

E3 2021 trailer We got our best look yet at Breath of the Wild 2 during the E3 2021 Nintendo presentation, with a trailer showing off the vast, expansive world of Hyrule – expanded even further with navigation into the skies, despite the more dungeon-crawling feeling of the original 2019 teaser.

There's some paragliding up in the clouds, along with more a freefall mechanic that seems ripped right out of Skyward Sword, and a new glove that looks to be taking the place of the Sheikah slate for Breath of the Wild 2.

There's even a short clip of a splashed puddle... reverting in time? We're not entirely sure, but it's clear that some new mechanics will be introduced into the Zelda formula, while one of the first game's sentient boulder enemies (that's Stone Pebblit to you) is shown with a Bokoblin fort on its back for BOTW 2, suggesting even more dynamic interplay between the game's many enemies. Take a look below...

Announcement trailer We got our very first glimpse of Breath of the Wild 2 at E3 2019, with this spooky trailer that shows Zelda and Link exploring an underground chamber – with some mysterious runes, glowing hands, and a brand-new haircut that has set the internet on fire. Suffice it to say we're excited.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 trailer that first revealed the game is just 82 seconds long and there's no dialogue whatsoever, but there are some clues to be gathered from it.

It features a torch-carrying Link and Zelda traversing a dark dungeon beneath Hyrule (no big surprise there). Spirit-like tendrils creep around the musty tomb they're exploring, with the pair riding a large elephant-like beast. Something shocks the pair, and then we cut to what appears to be the resurrection of some long-dead (and creepy looking) warrior. Could this be the return of Ganondorf?

The video then cuts to a long shot of Hyrule Field, with Hyrule Castle in the distance. There's a tremor, the castle is smothered with dust... and that's the end.

The clip finishes with a message that reads: "The sequel to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is in development."

We wouldn't usually expect so much animation to be done so early in development, but it probably helps that Nintendo already has the in-game engine from Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild 2 news and rumors

Too good for the Switch?

The most recent gameplay footage for Breath of the Wild 2 is impressive. But is it too impressive to be on the Nintendo Switch? According to tech experts Digital Foundry Breath of the Wild 2 includes a number of graphical features that the aging original Nintendo Switch would struggle to run.

The latest trailer for the Breath of the Wild sequel apparently runs at a higher image quality than we’re used to seeing on Switch, features graphically taxing volumetric clouds, and also includes an increased draw distance that may be too much for the original Switch hardware to handle.

“This trailer was interesting because the image quality seemed quite good,” says Digital Foundry’s senior staff writer John Linneman. “I was a little bit surprised by how sharp and clear it looks, compared to the original in general.”

“I agree,” says Digital Foundry’s technology editor Richard Leadbetter. “The leap in image quality compared to the first title is stark, to say the least.” Recent footage of BOTW 2 runs at 1080p to 720p, which is higher than the 900p docked resolution of the original.

While Leadbetter still thinks the higher resolution could be feasible on native hardware thanks to dynamic resolution scaling, Digital Foundry’s video producer Alex Battaglia seems convinced that Breath of the Wild 2’s recent footage definitely wasn’t taken from an original Switch.

When asked if BOTW 2 was actually running on the Switch, Battaglia said: “I honestly don’t think it is. We’ve seen volumetric clouds very rarely on Switch, and these don’t break down super obviously. Camera cuts also have perfect anti-aliasing, which is even rare for an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 game. It could be the next Switch.”

When Battaglia suggests the trailer may have been rendered at a higher resolution, Linneman rightly points out that Nintendo rarely does that. “The thing is, Alex, they never do that. In terms of actual resolution bumps to their trailers, I don’t think they ever really do that,” says Linneman. Nintendo tends to show its games running natively on original hardware, while other companies like Sony and Microsoft often show games running on high-end PCs .

So, could Breath of the Wild 2 be a cross-generational title and a sign that the Switch Pro is still a possibility? “I generally think that since they are delaying it now, this is gonna be the equivalent of what we saw with Breath of the Wild: it launches on the old and also on the new, and we see the nice benefits of the new regarding Switch Pro, Switch 2, Switch EX whatever,” says Battaglia.

It's a thrilling thought that Breath of the Wild 2 could be the launch title for a new Switch console but we'll have to wait for some kind of official announcement from Nintendo before we can be certain.

Rumors say no update until June

Zelda fans are keen for an update on the progress of Breath of the Wild 2 but a recent report has suggested they won’t get one until around June 2022. The report comes from prominent leaker AccountNGT who, while more known for leaking details on Star Wars Eclipse and Hogwarts Legacy, replied to a tweet asking when more news on Zelda could be expected, saying “E3 (if it’s not cancelled)”.

E3 has since, however, indeed been canceled. With Summer Game Fest still on the calendar, though, we're hoping summer could still bring an update.

Patent hints at Breath of the Wild 2 mechanics Three recent patents filed by Nintendo could give us an insight into the gameplay mechanics of Breath of the Wild 2. As spotted by GameReactor , the three patents have been registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Each patent contains a diagram of what could be Link abilities for Breath of the Wild 2, with the connection being drawn between what’s shown in the patent and what we got to see in the game’s E3 2021 trailer (that's embedded above if you need a refresher).

The first patent , for instance, describes the ability “to perform a special action” while a character is falling such as “a shooting action of shooting a predetermined object.” The diagram in the patent shows a character falling through the air with their arms wide and it’s a strikingly similar pose to Link’s at around 25 seconds into the E3 trailer.

A second patent describes “a designated object selected based on an operation input is caused to perform return movement to return to previously recorded positions and orientations, sequentially backward from the time of giving a start instruction based on the operation input.” That sounds like a way of saying Link might be able to focus on an object and reverse its trajectory. There’s a chance there’s a glimpse of this around the 44 second mark of the trailer, where Link appears to push back spiky chain balls that are rolling down a hill.

Finally, there's a third patent . This describes a scenario “in a virtual space including at least a player character and a terrain object” that’s above them. Basically, it appears the player would be able to move their character through the terrain object that’s above them. The trailer appears to show something similar to this at around the 50-second mark, where Link travels through the underside of a stone bridge to appear on top.

While it looks as though these abilities made an appearance in the trailer, none of these mechanics have been confirmed by Nintendo so it’s best to treat this with a pinch of salt at the moment.

A Nintendo Switch Pro could still be in the works The release of the Nintendo Switch OLED put a dampener on those rumors of a high-powered, 4K Nintendo Switch Pro intended to launch with Breath of the Wild 2. However, according to Tokyo-based analyst Serkan Toto, a Nintendo Switch Pro could still happen. Toto has suggested that the Switch OLED might be a “dummy upgrade” before a real upgrade arrives next year.

Speaking to Bloomberg , Toto said: “This new Switch looks more like an interim model than a real upgrade to me,” Toto told Bloomberg. “This might just be a dummy upgrade until Breath Of The Wild 2 is ready and the component shortage is over next year.”

April 2022 analysis of gameplay footage certainly suggests that more powerful hardware could be behind just how good the game looks.

Skyward Sword HD in the meantime There's still a wait for Breath of the Wild 2 but Nintendo has released an HD remaster of Skyward Sword in the meantime and we think it's worth playing while you wait. We think, from the mechanics and characters to the locations and narrative, both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild 2 could share a surprising amount of commonality and we've explained why you should consider paying attention to Skyward Sword HD in the run-up to the release of Breath of the Wild 2.

BOTW 2 and those Majora's Mask comparisons Nintendo's Treehouse is always a great place to find new info on upcoming Nintendo games, and Breath of the Wild 2 is no different. Bill Trinen, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Nintendo of America, spoke of BOTW 2 in a recent broadcast with IGN, and its much-noted comparison to the relationship between the N64's Ocarina of Time and its sequel, Majora's Mask.

"I would say it’s an easy comparison or conclusion to jump to at this point in time, just given what’s been shown so far and given the nature of it being a direct sequel. So I understand people making that conclusion, but at the same time – and I don’t want to delve too much into it – but this is its own game”.

However, whereas Majora's Mask reused lots of assets, Trinen wanted to make it clear that this is indeed a true sequel. “I think as we start to show a bit more of the game over the coming months to the next year or so, it’ll probably start to be a bit more apparent where this game stands on its own and what makes it so unique”.

"The way that [BOTW 2] builds on Breath of the Wild, which already was such an expansive game with so many layers of Link’s abilities and layers to the gameplay… I think this is going to layer quite a bit more into that”.

Ganondorf fan theory for BOTW 2 A Breath of the Wild 2 fan theory suggests that Ganondorf could be a playable character in segments of the game. Barrett Courtney of Kinda Funny (via GameSpot ) has suggested that the Link we got a glimpse of in the new E3 2021 trailer is actually Ganondorf and that part of the game will involve players exploring the fall of Ganondorf.

“This game will be learning about the fall of Ganondorf the man and then saving him from the evil that has been ruling over him for generations. And in doing so, we’ll break the cycle started by Demise.”

Continuing down this line, Courtney has suggested that the full name of BOTW 2 (still being kept under wraps by Nintendo) could be something like “Demise of the Wild”, making reference to Breath of the Wild and the corruption caused by Demise.

Incidentally, Demise is one of the main antagonists of Skyward Sword, which is to be re-released on Switch later this year. Courtney suggests that a Skyward Sword port was a deliberate choice, “Fujibayashi wants to connect all 3 of his major games together and getting Skyward to Switch will give first timers the back story they need before BOTW2.”

Of course, there is evidence against the theory and until Nintendo reveals more about the game, we can’t be absolutely certain about the story that Breath of the Wild 2 will tell.

The real title is being kept a secret Nintendo revealed to IGN that it's holding back on revealing the official full title of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 because it could give away some of what's going to happen in the game.

“As for why we’re holding back on the name, you’ll just have to stay tuned because, obviously, Zelda names are kind of important,” Nintendo Treehouse's Bill Trinen explained. “Those subtitles... they start to give little bits of hints about maybe what’s going to happen.”

Trinen didn't indicate when Nintendo is planning to reveal the full title but it's likely that won't be until closer to the game's release.

Hyrule Warriors and a longer wait for news Nintendo and Koei Tecmo Games have released a prequel to the original Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild titled Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity . Set 100 years before the original game, it has Link, Zelda and friends (including the four Champions, who will be playable for the first time) battle hordes of enemies in Hyrule before it was destroyed in the Great Calamity.

While it was exciting to have the chance to return to Hyrule in 2020, the release of this prequel did suggest it could be another while before we hear anything more about a sequel.

In revealing Age of Calamity, series producer Eiji Aonuma acknowledged the relative lack of news for Breath of the Wild 2 and said:

“In order to make the vast world you enjoyed exploring in the original game even more impressive, the team is working hard on its development, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer before we can provide more updates.”

Could Switch Pro rumors offer Breath of the Wild 2 hints? There have been numerous reports that there's a Nintendo Switch Pro in the works for a 2021-2022 release date. Reports of the new console come from the Economic Daily News and Bloomberg both of which suggest a more powerful Nintendo Switch console with upgraded interactivity and improved display quality could be coming next year. Along with these hardware upgrades, Bloomberg also suggests that Nintendo has a bunch of new games up its sleeve to launch alongside the console.

Given the original Breath of the Wild launched with the original Nintendo Switch back in 2017, launching Breath of the Wild 2 alongside a more advanced iteration of the console would be some nice symmetry.

Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch OLED in October 2021, which has an improved screen but no greater degree of power, putting some doubt on these rumors. However, an analyst has suggested another console could still come down the line.

Voice acting misunderstanding In a sign of just how much fans are looking for news on Breath of the Wild 2, an interview with the voice actors behind the Spanish dubs of Zelda and Revali in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Spanish podcast A Coffee with Nintendo was seized upon and caused some controversy (via IGN ).

In the interview it seemed to be suggested that the voice actors had finished their work on BOTW 2, leading fans to think that the game might be further along in its development than originally thought. However, this proved to be incorrect. It was later clarified that the voice actors were joking and that context was lost due to translation issues. In fact, it's not even confirmed that they're working on the sequel. So we're left with no further clues as to progress on Breath of the Wild 2.

All the DLC that never was In an interview with Kotaku , Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma said there were originally plans for more DLC content for BOTW, after The Champion's Ballad and Master Trials add-ons that came in 2017.

"Initially we were thinking of just DLC ideas," says Anouma. "But then we had a lot of ideas and we said, 'This is too many ideas, let’s just make one new game and start from scratch.'"

BOTW 2 will be a darker turn for the series All we really know at this point is how little we know. But boy, are there rumors. The unexpected trailer sparked a huge amount of speculation, hopes and hot takes on what the next mainline Zelda title might include.

We've heard from Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma that the game is going to have a darker tone than Breath of the Wild, and will even be "a little bit darker" than Majora's Mask (via IGN ).

The trailer certainly supports this, with what looks like Ganondorf's corpse being resurrected by a disembodied hand, and seemingly imagery from 2006's Twilight Princess, which saw Hyrule turned into a bleak shadow realm – largely in response to the far cheerier and cartoonish The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. That said, it won't be all doom and gloom - visually at least - as the E3 2021 trailer has at least indicated that we'll take to the skies and explore amongst the clouds.

The Twilight realm The glowing blue hand in the trailer is the biggest clue that we'll be seeing more of the Twili – shadow people descended from Hylians who tried to take the power of the Triforce for themselves. The hand is wrapped in twisting shapes reminiscent of Twilight architecture, while the swirling magic could remind some of the portals that let Twili invade Hyrule in the 2006 game.

We know that BOTW's dev team originally toyed with the idea of an alien invasion, and seeing shadow creatures teleport out of the sky could well have been what they have planned this time around.

A clue in the audio Showing just how far some Zelda fans will go, reddit user u/ReroFunk (via Inverse ) pieced together a pretty convincing theory regarding Twilight Princess villain Zant, a Twili who served Ganondorf in the game. If you listen to the trailer's audio in reverse, there are certain notes that seem to echo the music played during your final encounter with Zant – who, while defeated, is adamant he'll return through the power of his "god".

u/ReroFunk also suggests we could see the demon king Demise return for the next Zelda game. Demise was the final boss in Skyward Sword, and revealed to be the original form of Ganondorf. The below still from the Zelda trailer also looks a lot like Demise when you think about it.

Lots of dungeons (and an extended map) Rumors about the Breath of the Wild sequel suggest that we could be in for a treat in the form of a new map that's not like anything we've seen from Zelda before. What's more, a couple of new job listings suggest that Nintendo is looking for people to work on designing some dungeons and hidden bosses for the game – so far, so exciting.

Zelda's turn in the spotlight? One of the favorite fan theories doing the rounds regards the Hyrule princess herself. She's shown in the trailer with a practical short haircut, and is dressed in a manner pretty similar to Link's own adventurer's gear – leading some to think she may be a playable character.

Zelda's devs have seemed pretty dismissive of the idea of a female Link in the past – sadly – but we may in this game see sections playing as Zelda, or at least with her playing a more active role in the story.

Will Nvidia need to protect the RTX 40 series GPUs from cryptomining madness?

The last few weeks have provided some well-deserved respite for PC gamers and computer builders, after what has been a fairly horrendous two years since the launch of the Nvidia Ampere and AMD RDNA2 graphics architecture.

Where we once faced global shortages and skyrocketing prices thanks to a dastardly mix of different issues, it's now fairly easy to walk into a brick and mortar store to buy a reasonably priced graphics card , or add one to your online basket without having to worry that it'll have sold out by the time you've finished going through the transaction process.

This is a relief for many, and yet I still feel on edge. The multitude of problems that caused the original situation hasn't entirely been resolved, which means we could slip right back into depressing familiarity when Nvidia and AMD launch their next generation of desktop graphics cards towards the end of this year.

One of the most recognizable blights was that of cryptomining , and the surge in demand for GPUs to be used in mining rigs, both in small-scale operations, right up to warehouses housing industrial mining farms. Bots were used by miners to buy up the available stock of desirable GPUs such as the GeForce RTX 3060 and the Radeon RX 6700 XT before traditional consumers could complete their purchases.

Opportunists saw this sudden rise in demand and also got involved, which only made matters worse. By also buying up stock, they could then re-list cards on sites such as eBay or Facebook Marketplace for a profit, which inflated the original retail price by a mind-boggling sum. At the height of it, RTX 3080s were often listed at over three times their actual price .

How did the crypto craze cause gamers suffering?

Interestingly, cryptomining itself likely played a smaller part in the overall GPU shortage than you might assume, given the global chip shortage was also causing manufacturing delays. However, that didn't stop miners from being seen as public enemy number one to desperate consumers looking to buy a reasonably priced card.

Nvidia did eventually try and reclaim some of its lost public appeal by re-releasing almost the entire RTX 30 series as LHR or 'low hashrate' versions of the originals, which limited their ability to mine cryptocurrency without impacting in-game performance. Almost the entire RTX 3000-series of cards have contained hashrate limiters since (not including the GeForce RTX 3090 as it was deemed too expensive to attract the mining market) which limited their ability to mine currencies like ETH, but several of these were quickly defeated . Some software was able to unlock cards to 70-80% efficiency in a matter of mere weeks.

It's genuinely hard to say if this had any real impact, though some credibility was lost over its security when Nvidia accidentally broke its own LHR software with a botched driver update .

In the end, it's taken almost a full year for the LHR software to be completely unlocked thanks to a company called NiceHash , but even this only works on older versions of the LHR algorithm, and doesn't include systems running on Linux. Nvidia has been diligent to keep updating its LHR software, but we don't know if this will carry over to its next generation of GPUs. We've emailed Nvidia for some clarification, but it's worth remembering that we could see a very similar situation unfold later this year, even if cryptomining continues to fall in popularity.

You might think of Bitcoin at the mention of cryptomining, but it was actually Ethereum , the world's second most popular currency, that was causing issues for gamers back in 2020. Luckily, Ethereum started to move to proof-of-stake at the end of 2021, using validators to find a block based on the number of tokens they hold. The current proof-of-work system has computers competing against each other to be the first to solve complex puzzles, which allows miners to use warehouses full of consumer graphics cards to solve those puzzles, mining ETH more intensively in the process.

As ETH moves over to proof-of-stake, the need for those 'puzzles' to be solved disappears, and the viability to mine using traditional methods vanishes with it . That said, there's nothing to stop Ethereum's success from being replicated by another currency that still uses the proof-of-work validation method, especially with the ongoing threat of a financial crisis looming across the western world.

It's only natural that desperate people will try and make some cash in a decentralized market, especially after seeing the success of people who invested in Bitcoin back in 2009.

This is especially prevalent with Elon Musk buying Twitter , a man known for holding massive influence over the wider crypto market and who may soon be able to model Twitter into a platform that's better optimized to deal with the ever-changing world of digital investment portfolios. All it takes is for a low-value currency that's viable for mining with consumer GPUs and it could rapidly feel like we're back in the same inescapable hardware shortage once again.

Remain alert and learn from recent history

I don't mean for any of this to come across as fear-mongering. I was actually relieved to be able to report on falling GPU prices and improved availability after spending the better part of the last two years writing about how depressing the market was for both new and established PC gamers at the time who just wanted to buy a new graphics card, but I don't want to fall into a false sense of security because of this current respite.

To escape the same situation unfolding, we need a perfect storm that works in our favor. We need for supplies of the next generation of GPUs to be plentiful (which could be impacted by the recent Covid-19 lockdowns across East Asia where most of the hardware is manufactured), we need the Crypto market to either remain stable or spiral downward to deter potential investors, and we need these new graphics cards to be reasonably priced at launch and then - somehow - remain that way in spite of high demand.

AMD has made it clear that consumers can use its cards for anything they want as they have purchased them outright, so it's unlikely that Team Red will be implementing a similar deterrent as the Nvidia LHR algorithm, and Intel appears to share this sentiment after announcing that the ARC Alchemist desktop graphics cards will launch without any cryptocurrency mining handicaps.

If Nvidia does decide to carry LHR tech over to the Lovelace generation of cards then it will be alone, but that isn't necessarily bad news. If the preventative measures work then nobody loses as miners will be driven towards Intel and AMDs offerings to supply their farming rigs, while gamers, developers, and desktop PC builders can source their hardware from Team Green, which might place it in better public standing than its rivals.

While this is all speculative, it's important to remain vigilant in the coming months as interest for the next generation of graphics cards grows, so that you're in the best possible to buy one at launch.

If we can take anything useful away from the last two years, it's that nabbing a founders edition GPU directly from the manufacturer was one of the only ways to get a card at MSRP, which might be your best option to avoid months of misery when trying to upgrade your current system. Best start warming up your fingers now for some fast basket-adding... just in case.