The graphics card nightmare is over. The funny thing is that at this point they are no longer worth buying
We have been suffering from an almost absurd situation in the world of graphics cards for years: we had the best (by far) in history, but we couldn’t buy them. Or yes, but only at absolutely exorbitant prices thanks to the hell created by cryptocurrency miners and speculators who for months have used bots to buy these components.
how were we. For the past few years we have been in a chaotic, almost hellish situation: cryptocurrency miners and speculators managed to grab what little supply there is—with the pandemic and chip shortages aggravating everything—in the graphics card market. Although it was possible to find state-of-the-art models —especially on platforms such as eBay or Wallapop—, their prices were totally skyrocketing and could easily triple the manufacturer’s recommended retail price.
An RTX 3060 that is now at 529 euros became more than 1,500. The horrible old days. Source: CamelCamelCamel.
The new normal, also in GPUs. This unique nightmare began to ease last summer, and now we’re finally getting back to some “normal”—the quotes are important—because buying a next-gen graphics card is once again feasible. There is availability and the prices, although high, are even acceptable considering where we come from. The curious thing here is that it is not worth buying at this point.
Prices (finally) down. The study carried out by 3DCenter (in German, Google translation here) proves it: the price evolution of the latest generation graphics from AMD and NVIDIA is finally on a downward line. After months—even years—of inflated prices and extremely limited supply, stores have been able to remove the “Out of Stock” sign and offer a wide variety of models from the best graphics on the market.
These data from 3DCenter show how, for example, in recent weeks the price of AMD’s Radeon 6000 has fallen by an average of 13%. The reduction has been much lower in the NVIDIA RTX 3000, which on average have seen their prices drop by 6%, but the curve is still downward.
What happened. That discount has a lot to do with the world of cryptocurrencies. During all this time, mining with crypto GPUs such as ETH (Ethereum) was very profitable, but the rise in electricity bills and the persecution of these activities has meant that things no longer pay off as much.
The price of ETH, which has been in the doldrums in recent months, has been linked to factors such as the cost of energy or the persecution of crypto mining. Manufacturers have been able to recover production rates, and that has ended up raising this price drop. Supply finally exceeded demand. Source: 3D Center.
And yet they should be much cheaper. We are therefore facing a situation in which the prices of graphics cards are almost close to what is reasonable if one compares these prices with those we have experienced in recent times. The problem is that they are still expensive, without a doubt, and even with this evolution, the sale prices are still significantly higher than the recommended launch price. An RTX 3060 Ti that launched at $399 can hopefully be found for around €579.
The thing is even more painful if we take into account that the RTX 3000 were launched in September 2020 and the AMD 6000 did so a month later, in October 2020. It’s been a long year and a half, so under normal conditions one would expect that these graphs were cheaper than when they were launched. It is not like this.
Why is it no longer worth going for these graphs. The funniest thing is that this drop in prices and that availability of models is probably late. It is good news, without a doubt, but it is that the new AMD and NVIDIA is falling. NVIDIA graphics with Ada architecture —the RTX 4000— and AMD graphics with RDNA3 architecture —the Radeon 7000— are expected to arrive in the fall, and rumors suggest that the jump in performance will be enormous, up to 150%.
It’s hard to believe, but offering those improvements, what seems obvious is that these graphics cards could also launch with a higher starting price than their current generation equivalents. Perhaps the best thing, if you are not in a hurry, is to wait until September or October to check how things are.
If everything goes as expected, one thing is clear: the prices of the current RTX 3000 and Radeon 6000 should continue to fall further. How many? Impossible to know, but the appearance of the new models will cause both AMD and NVIDIA to find themselves with a problem: a huge inventory that they will have to get rid of.
