Thursday, January 28th 2021

Graphics Card Prices Could Soar Amid Increasing Memory Prices

The prices of graphics cards have been perhaps the most controversial topic among PC enthusiasts lately. High demand and low supply of the latest generation GPUs have lead to the massive price increase over MSRP. Graphics card makers, AMD and NVIDIA, have already announced that this situation is not going to get better until March ends. However, there seems to be another possible issue appearing slowly on the horizon. According to the Chinese website MyDrivers, the prices of graphics cards are expected to increase thanks to the increasing prices of memory used in them, presumably including both the slower GDDR6 and the faster GDDR6X memory.

The source claims that the new memory price increase is going to take place after February 12th, when Chinese New Year ends. As both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere generation and AMD Radeon 6000 series generation use GDDR6X and GDDR6 respectively, that means that the increased prices of these memory types could increase the MSRP, which is already above its original intent.
Sources: MyDrivers, via Hardware Info
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85 Comments on Graphics Card Prices Could Soar Amid Increasing Memory Prices

#26
The Quim Reaper
Does that mean my RTX 2080 just went up another $50 on the 2nd hand market?

..at this rate I could sell it for more than I bought it for ($650) in January 2019.

What a pitiful and pathetic state of affairs PC gaming has become. It's like they want people to abandon it and go console...
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#27
renz496
The Quim ReaperDoes that mean my RTX 2080 just went up another $50 on the 2nd hand market?

..at this rate I could sell it for more than I bought it for ($650) in January 2019.

What a pitiful and pathetic state of affairs PC gaming has become. It's like they want people to abandon it and go console...
pc gaming is all about being flexible. the only problem is those that must have the highest or the latest gear in their PC. my previous 2500K end up serving me for 7 years. right now i got 9400F. most likely will not going to upgrade to new CPU unless it is 8 core CPU or more. although i might not going to get it until 8 core CPU becoming more common in sub $200 price range (probably won't happen for another 5 years?).
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#28
JustAnEngineer
Some jokers must have orchestrated a short squeeze on GPU. :laugh:
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#29
InVasMani
Big problem with GPU market is the too much emphasis on high end of the spectrum. Look how long the RX580 has been been the value for dollar GPU that it's been. There has been nearly no innovation value for dollar at the lower mid range of the market for too long.
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#30
bug
InVasManiBig problem with GPU market is the too much emphasis on high end of the spectrum. Look how long the RX580 has been been the value for dollar GPU that it's been. There has been nearly no innovation value for dollar at the lower mid range of the market for too long.
There was, it was called 1060 and 1660.
But yes, as a buyer of mid-range cards, I too feel we needed to upgrade much less often.
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#31
R0H1T
bugLook at the bright side: the more they cost, the more you save by not buying one.
But of course, this really never gets old does it :roll:
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#32
1d10t
Now we know what will caused WW3, it started by a bunch of angry mob carrying pitchfork DP and HDMI cables.
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#33
Vayra86
MachineLearningJust when you thought, "surely it can't get any worse..."
Well things are looking up. Vaccines seem to be taking quite a while to be effective and distributed so we'll be getting more deaths, new strains of the virus work too in reducing demand ;)

A bit long term but hey. We do need to realize we have finite space and resources on this planet but an increasing number of people, and even a big pandemic is hardly enough to turn that growth around.

This is not going away and the automotive industry is just about to swing Thor's hammer at fabs in volume. We made everything digital but forgot we now all need a chip for literally every single thing.
InVasManiBig problem with GPU market is the too much emphasis on high end of the spectrum. Look how long the RX580 has been been the value for dollar GPU that it's been. There has been nearly no innovation value for dollar at the lower mid range of the market for too long.
We're practically standing still since 2016. Let's face it. Turing didn't offer anything, the 2070S was the exact same thing as a 1080ti with less VRAM and same perf/dollar and max perf. The SKUs above it were priced out of the comfort zone altogether. SUPER moved that bar up to a 2080S, if you want to be optimistic about it that is. I'm not because SUPER was too late to market, and Ampere killed that deal shortly after.

Ampere offers more but isn't for sale at MSRP
RDNA2 offers more but isn't for sale at MSRP

Its the whole reason I'm still gaming on this 1080. Best GPU I ever bought tbh. I could still sell it today for 75%~100% of purchase value no problem lol.

Its all just a result of 'the end of rasterization'. Even the midrange can slaughter that no problem. GPU needed a new problem to solve, so we got RT. Commerce wants us to break wallets on that problem because the old problem is practically solved, diminishing returns in graphical improvements happen so we don't see the value of upgrading. Even an upgrade to 4K isn't at all impressive when you've got UW or 1440p in front of you already.

The top end of the stack barely moved up in absolute performance, so the midrange can't do it either without cannibalizing the range above it. Its a different result of the same principle that if you don't keep advancing the high end, everything comes to a standstill (AMD learned this too with Polaris & Vega).
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#35
Vayra86
TumbleGeorgeIf you has problem with shortrages and overprices of new graphic cards but wanna play just buy Tesla S and play. :D
Autopilot = CheatEngine? :D
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#36
sepheronx
Guess I shouldn't feel bad I managed to get a 3070 then.

Still, it isn't that great of a card. Especially for the price.
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#37
neatfeatguy
Here's hoping that I get an email from EVGA saying I can buy a RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 that I put in for notification back in December.....If I can get one at the listed prices of $529 (3070) I'd be thrilled. At this current rate of things I'd even be okay with the price of $729 (3080) if I had to go that route.

I took notice of Micro Center and their pricing of the RX models - they've already shup in price, but I suppose it doesn't matter since they're never in stock and sell out immediately the morning a few come in. The RTX cards are also creeping up in price....but they're just as hard to get if you're not real early, standing in line that's already 30 people deep 30 minutes before the store opens.
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#38
bug
sepheronxGuess I shouldn't feel bad I managed to get a 3070 then.

Still, it isn't that great of a card. Especially for the price.
$500 (assuming you got it close to MSRP) to play almost everything at 4k? I think that's a great deal.
It would have been much better if it was a little cheaper and drew less power, but at least coming from Turing, it's better than I expected.

Also, a personal preference, but I would have liked it better if Nvidia kept only three performance tiers, even if it meant larger gaps between them.
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#39
Paganstomp
gone back to playing PS One games... with emulators. :D
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#40
Mr Bill
I bought a ATI 7700 Radeon HD back years ago, of course I'm not a gamer, but this has been a great card for all my needs. I personally believe that these card makers have the stock, IMO, it's probably like ammo, they're inflating prices to make more money, using the pandemic to justify their prices.
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#41
sepheronx
bug$500 (assuming you got it close to MSRP) to play almost everything at 4k? I think that's a great deal.
It would have been much better if it was a little cheaper and drew less power, but at least coming from Turing, it's better than I expected.

Also, a personal preference, but I would have liked it better if Nvidia kept only three performance tiers, even if it meant larger gaps between them.
$800 CAD
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#42
ThrashZone
Hi,
Yeah I'll 2nd.... I don't care anymore and I hope nothing breaks lol
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#43
Octavean
Really regretting passing up on a RTX 2070 / 2080 and waiting for the RTX 3000 series,.....

while I did it to myself, who could of seen this clusterF coming,.....?
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#44
Dux
I have been buying used graphics cards for years. Maybe I'll buy a used RTX 3080 when people start switching over to RTX 4000 series. Prices are insane.
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#45
HisDivineOrder
Thing is, they're pricing PC gamers out of PC gaming, especially when consoles are now in the neighborhood of 4k60 for substantially less. The golden goose is being strangled. Wonder how many PC gamers are going to get tired of waiting and waiting and waiting, first for nvidia and AMD to release products that were actual upgrades and now that they finally got around to doing so, waiting for them to make enough at the original prices they promised.

Meh. Might be time to give up on PC gaming for a generation.
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#46
Prima.Vera
No video card for consumers should cost more than 499$....
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#47
xSneak
Lol. I remember when the 3080 came out and everyone was whining about the price. Now it's going to be a $1000 card soon enough.
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#48
mechtech
How's the supplies of GDDR5?

And wait, I thought prices were already soaring along with unavailability??
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#49
Totally
Just want to point out laptop prices have been constant, can't remember the last time prices have gone up. Meaning I have been paying roughly the same amount for the same tier/class of hardware. So I can't help but think something is wrong when consumer grade components are being sold at prosumer prices because [insert flimsy reasoning here] yet laptop pricing remain static.
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#50
Kapone33
HisDivineOrderThing is, they're pricing PC gamers out of PC gaming, especially when consoles are now in the neighborhood of 4k60 for substantially less. The golden goose is being strangled. Wonder how many PC gamers are going to get tired of waiting and waiting and waiting, first for nvidia and AMD to release products that were actual upgrades and now that they finally got around to doing so, waiting for them to make enough at the original prices they promised.

Meh. Might be time to give up on PC gaming for a generation.
You are missing the point in MSRP. The S stands for "suggested". I can't speak for the US but I know in Canada it is the distributor that determines the price it sells to retail channels which influences the retaIL price. There is no doubt that one thing they have promised is that all of these cards are faster than the 2080TI and the AMD cards are all up to 90% faster than their previous Gen. Those 2 factors alone means that of the 17+ million users on Steam, if 3% are looking to get a new card that there are 510,000 potential customers from the traditional Gaming channels. As Epic had 19 million downloads of SW Battlefront 2 and even though plenty of those users are on Steam at least 5% of them are on Epic alone.

Now let's put the pandemic into focus. The biggest Youtube tech channels have all doubled in 2020. Even TPU has a wealth of new members since 2020. That means that millions of people have become more intimately aware of these new GPUs. That brings me back to my first point in that these cards are all faster or as fast the 2080TI.

The mining craze is the 3rd pillar as just last week on Newegg there were no GPUs (Lg710 excused) for sale on the site. We have even seen a return to stock of RX570 8GB cards in a few channels (not third party) like Newegg and Canada Computers. Even those cards are being gobbled up as we speak. Crypto mining is highly volatile but this time it is different. This time the move is being influenced by traditional investment institutions and individuals there are a cornucopia of vehicles they use. The 2nd point also contributes to the social media effect. Do you remember that story (with Pics) of the person that was using 78 3090s in a Mining Rig 2 to 3 weeks after they were released. Nvidia told everyone that they were going to drop SLI support and then all of a sudden several Youtube channels have a competition with 2 3090s in SLI for 3D Mark scores?


Those are (for me) the most mitigating factor in the price of GPUs. Now we add memory pricing woes and the pressure gets even stronger. The machiavellian thing is supply IS just starting to come into a more healthy state (If ever so slowly).
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