Graphics cards are still heavily overpriced compared to a few years ago, but the good news is that things are finally getting better, not worse.
To quantify, Tom’s Hardware ‘s Jarred Walton and analyst John Peddy compiled current and historical GPU price data. The only modern card that consistently approaches the MSRP of $199 is the rigorously tested AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, which currently sells for an average of $220 according to Peddie and $237 according to Walton. But across the board, prices are well below their 2021 peaks.
Nvidia’s RTX 3080 pricing shows where the market is right now – the card currently sells for between $1,200 and $1,300 on average, with some models available on retail sites like Newegg for as little as $ 1,000. The cost is still well above the card’s MSRP of $699, but it’s almost a third off the card’s $1,800 peak price.
Anyone who has been following this situation can name the factors that led to the dramatic increase in GPU prices in the first place. New products such as the RTX 3000 series promised a leap in performance over previous generations, just as next-generation game consoles pushed new advances in game engines and graphical fidelity. These usual factors have collided with supply chain problems, chip shortages, and a boom in cryptocurrency mining, which has led to an increase in demand. The increased demand also attracted scalpers, who exacerbated the situation.
Peddy specifically blames scalpers, cryptocurrency miners and retailers for the biggest price increases, not chip shortages or supply chain issues. He notes that the cost of a single graphics card (or “AIB”, which means “additional board”) “has increased by at least 2 or even 3 times compared to laptop GPUs.” In other words, miners and speculators were not buying gaming laptops en masse just to use them for mining or for resale, and in the absence of these demand distortions, gaming laptop supply and prices were not as low as standalone desktop GPUs.. . As the profitability of cryptocurrencies has fallen (and as some coins, such as Ethereum, are preparing to completely abandon GPU mining), prices for these standalone GPUs have been gradually declining.
Shortage or not, the technology that powers these GPUs is still evolving in the background – all three major GPU companies are said to be planning GPU launches sometime this year. Intel has already officially announced its dedicated Arc GPUs, which are due this summer. Power-hungry Nvidia RTX 4000-series GPUs as well as RDNA 3-based AMD Radeon 7000-series cards are also reportedly coming this year.
And the launch of new GPUs brings with it a bunch of new questions: Will MSRPs for new cards go up because people are so used to paying more for GPUs? Will current generation models be sold at lower prices or will they fade out to push consumers towards newer products? Will consumers still be interested in buying “latest generation”cards, or will they decide to stick with newer models instead? GPU prices may be on the decline, but we can expect them to remain unpredictable for the foreseeable future.