Thursday, May 12th 2022

Bitcoin Bloodbath Brings Cheer to Gamers as Graphics Card Prices Plummet

Bitcoin, along with most cryptocurrencies are going through a cycle of devaluation. They may rebound in the future, but for now it means that crypto miners will halt purchases of graphics cards, and possibly even sell what they have, to raise capital for next-generation GPU purchases (late-2022). What this means is a flooding of the market with used graphics cards, which will put tremendous pressure on graphics card manufacturers to lower prices. It's also a means for NVIDIA and AMD to clear out their current-generation inventory, to make room for the next-gen. The inflection of all these factors brings cheer to PC gamers, who can finally have an NVIDIA "Ampere" or AMD RDNA2 graphics card at prices that are either at or below MSRP (launch prices).

Bitcoin has crashed nearly 60%, from its November 2021 price of 65,000 USD, to 27,150, as of this writing. This will have a direct impact on the economics of mining cryptocurrencies using power-hungry high-end graphics cards. Those with mining farms will look to stop mining, and possibly get rid of some of their graphics cards while their market-value are still at an acceptable level. The competition between pre-owned graphics cards and brand-new ones from the market, will bring down prices of both.
NVIDIA recently announced the "Restocked and Reloaded" marketing campaign, where the company is reaching out to gamers, telling them that their RTX 30-series cards are back in stock, at MSRP pricing. AMD, on the other hand, has refreshed its RX 6000 series product stack with three new SKUs, signaling gamers that it has new hardware on the shelves.

An AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT can be had for as low as $899, which is also the price for the cheapest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080. The cheapest RTX 3060 Ti is $529, while the cheapest RX 6700 XT is $498. The cheapest RX 6600 XT is at $399, while the cheapest RTX 3060 is going for $419. Rejoice!
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122 Comments on Bitcoin Bloodbath Brings Cheer to Gamers as Graphics Card Prices Plummet

#26
Vya Domus
napataBut that wasn't your argument. Bitcoin and its value itself has no relation to GPU prices. A correlation doesn't change that.
Yes it does. BTC crashes -> so does everything else including ETH -> profits go down -> miners start selling GPUs if this lasts for long enough -> GPU prices go down

Why is this so hard to understand ?
Posted on Reply
#27
ppn
RTX 3080 /12GB is soon to be replaced by 4060 or even 4070 and needs to drop to 399-599 asap.
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#28
mechtech
R-T-BEthereum's crash might. Bitcoin has no relation whatsoever though. Funny how it gets the credit anyways.

That's going to hurt you more than it hurts them honestly.
Not really. Still running my
RX480. Hasn’t hurt me. Actually saved me and my family 100s of dollars. I was waiting for price drops but now that I have been waiting so long I have lost interest. I will probably wait for 7k series to see if they have full DP 2.0 and a revised media engine. If I can get a 7600 for under $425 CAD I might buy one.
Posted on Reply
#29
Chomiq
ppnRTX 3080 /12GB is soon to be replaced by 4060 or even 4070 and needs to drop to 399-599 asap.
Sadly I don't think it's going to happen. Nvidia and AMD are too used to record profits from their GPU business. They know that people will buy their GPUs for as much as they are asking.
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#30
mechtech
ChomiqSadly I don't think it's going to happen. Nvidia and AMD are too used to record profits from their GPU business. They know that people will buy their GPUs for as much as they are asking.
I honestly wouldn’t mind paying the extra cash if we got something worthwhile in return like dual or triple bios at the flick of a switch or how about a 5yr hassle free warranty??? Something at least to semi-justify the 200-500% mark ups or even the 30%+ increase on MSRP vs an equivalent previous gen card.

oh ya and crypto crash yes finally and good!! Lol
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#31
Auer
As global inflation sets in, all prices will go up including that of GPU's.

I dont see much reason to celebrate the current situation.
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#32
Denver
BTC is not mined with GPUs. It makes no sense...
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#33
TheinsanegamerN
Vya DomusYes it does. BTC crashes -> so does everything else including ETH -> profits go down -> miners start selling GPUs if this lasts for long enough -> GPU prices go down

Why is this so hard to understand ?
Because in his mind if you dont directly mine the coin with a GPU it cant possibly be related.
Posted on Reply
#34
Metroid
BTC and the crash to below 10k is getting closer and closer. I have a buy order at 9300 usd and it will hit in few months, dont sell now, wait till btc is below 10k and then you sell it to me for 9300 usd hehe
Posted on Reply
#35
neatfeatguy
DenverBTC is not mined with GPUs. It makes no sense...
How the cryptomarket currently works, everything tends to ebb and flow with Bitcoin.

Just look at how Ethereum price correlates with Bitcoin's price.

Past 24hrs, Bitcoin:


Past 24hrs, Ethereum:


People are correct that Bitcoin isn't mined with GPUs, but when Bitcoin suffers, all other cryptocurrencies share the fate of dropping. If Bitcoin goes down, other coins go down that use GPUs and therefore the idea of buying up GPUs to mine becomes less profitable to a point where miners stop buying and then eventually start dumping.
Posted on Reply
#36
TheinsanegamerN
DenverBTC is not mined with GPUs. It makes no sense...
Banks are not used to trade stocks, it makes no sense why the collapse of 1929 lead to bank failure! /s

The whole market is intertwined, and any hit to crypto leads to all cryptos falling, which leads to low profitability (because the only way to make money at this is to mine coins then hold and drive the price up). I think the recent actions against NFT scammers has a lot to do with this collapse too, there has been action against those pushing NFTs and the tax man is looking at others, it's spooked the whole market, and the whole point of NFTs was to drive up the price of crypto.
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#37
defaultluser
Looking forward to this! The bloodbath with start flowing perpetually once ETH goes POS.

I remember picking-up a $250 Zotac Amp Edition refurb clearance for $140 - I'm hoping to grab a RTX 3060 for around $250 (or I can compromise on a 3050 for around $150, but I'll probably just throw that straiht in the HTPC)

I've just been waiting an extra year for cycling this 1060 to my HTPC for better HDR 4k gaming than my GT 960 can currently provide (1080p, with HDR-off)!
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#39
kapone32
Still too expensive in Canada
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#40
Bomby569
Still too expensive in Europe
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#41
Steevo
Praise our one true god Nick Cage, may the crypto bankrupt completely as the worthless virtual garbage it is so that our hardware may be made for the glory of driving pixels and not profits. May the effort in engineering be towards making more and better vector acceleration upscaling for video, more power efficiency with better cooling.

At new low low prices
Posted on Reply
#42
tomc100
I'm glad I never bought from a scalper or miner. I preordered an RTX 3080 ti and got it at retail price which was still a lot. Also sold my rtx 2080 super for a good price to help pay for it.
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#43
TheinsanegamerN
defaultluserLooking forward to this! The bloodbath with start flowing perpetually once ETH goes POS.
Still huffing the copium gas there eh? Eliminating GAS fees hurts thos ewho control the etherium chain, and with the price dropping there is now no reason to go POS. But I'm sure after delaying POS for 2..... no wait 3...... no wait 4...... no wait 5....... no wait 6 years now, it's totally gonna happen this time.

By the way, have you seen a wolf lately?
Posted on Reply
#44
ThaiTaffy
Wish someone would tell thailand a 3050 is still 500 dollhairs here.
Posted on Reply
#45
R-T-B
Vya DomusNicehash pays you in BTC, of course it matters.
By exchanging ethereum for btc, so same point... it's price is irrelevant. Ethereum and by btc are somewhat related by virtue of being crypto, but that's it.
Vya Domusif BTC crashes you get paid less.
Even if eth crashes you don't necessarily get paid less. Network difficulty is likely to drop to adapt. It's way more complex than this article pretends.
Posted on Reply
#46
Octopuss
Isn't the sole purpose of every other coin to be traded for bitcoin? So if bitcoin crashes, everything else becomes completely useless/worthless.
Posted on Reply
#47
R-T-B
OctopussIsn't the sole purpose of every other coin to be traded for bitcoin?
No. I don't even know why people do that. Bitcoin transaction fees make it almost unusable.
Posted on Reply
#48
Ivaroeines
Cards used for mining is far more worn than a gamers card since they probably been running at full speed 24/7, causing solder, glue, components(capacitors in particular) and print board having far more heat damage and fans being pretty much worn out. To buy a card from a miner would be a very risky thing, and only be considered at a massively reduced price(1 fourth or less than retail).

A smart miner would buy the cheapest cards possible, using a overclocked premium card for mining makes no sense, it would be downright stupid to do so, a smart miner would under clock the card to make it more efficient, so manufactures that don't want them to be used for mining should focus on premium cards.
Posted on Reply
#49
neatfeatguy
IvaroeinesCards used for mining is far more worn than a gamers card since they probably been running at full speed 24/7, causing solder, glue, components(capacitors in particular) and print board having far more heat damage and fans being pretty much worn out. To buy a card from a miner would be a very risky thing, and only be considered at a massively reduced price(1 fourth or less than retail).
I've had cards I ran HOT in SLI for years and they still worked fine; by hot I mean in the low 90s for temps and I'd game on them hours on end. You'd have constant high temps and rapid cooling when I stopped gaming, then constant high temps and rapid cooling, repeat this madness for 4+ years. The cards even went on to other systems and were used for years after. I still have one of them that I plan on screwing around with soon just because I can.

I've purchased new hardware and I've had it fail after a few uses.

Using your logic, based on my personal experiences, I shouldn't be buying new hardware because it's failed on me more often than my used, abused and aged hardware.
Posted on Reply
#50
Octopuss
R-T-BNo. I don't even know why people do that. Bitcoin transaction fees make it almost unusable.
Are you telling me you can buy ANYTHING with any non-bitcoin currencies? I mean, you can hardly use bitcoin as payment in the first place.
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