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
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.
85 Comments on Graphics Card Prices Could Soar Amid Increasing Memory Prices
..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...
But yes, as a buyer of mid-range cards, I too feel we needed to upgrade much less often.
pitchforkDP and HDMI cables.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. 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).
Still, it isn't that great of a card. Especially for the price.
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.
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.
Yeah I'll 2nd.... I don't care anymore and I hope nothing breaks lol
while I did it to myself, who could of seen this clusterF coming,.....?
Meh. Might be time to give up on PC gaming for a generation.
And wait, I thought prices were already soaring along with unavailability??
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).