Mid-range and High-end Graphics Card Prices Could Rally: Report

[btarunr]

Prices of mid-range and high-end graphics cards could rise over the course of 2018, warns a report by Taiwan-based industry observer DigiTimes. The report quotes a USD $5-20 increase (we're guessing that's bill-of-material/BOM cost). Tight supply of memory chips and GPUs are attributed to the price hikes. Crypto-currency mining is a key factor, according to the report. Demand for graphics cards by miners hasn't waned (perhaps associated with Ethereum's all-time high value), which could further strain graphics card supplies throughout 2018.

Major Taiwan-based graphics card vendors, such as ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE, benefited from the GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining boom of 2017, and sales went down only slightly towards Q4-2017. On the other end of the spectrum, rising popularity of online multi-player games such as "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds," has triggered PC upgrades, further straining graphics card supply, the report states.



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[Upgrayedd]

My god..when will it end...

 

[rtwjunkie]

Ridiculousness. You'd think after a year straight manufacturers would realize they need a few short ramps in production. They are obviously giving up revenue by doing so.

 

[64K]

My god..when will it end...

From what little I know about mining it seems to go in cycles. It's profitable again right now so when it becomes less profitable supplies probably will increase and prices drop some. I'm hoping this happens at some point in 2018 as I want to upgrade to 4K and need a better card for what I want.

 

[Liviu Cojocaru]

I think it already started in the UK...with a kid on the way I think my PC will remain like this for a long time now.

 

[Vya Domus]

You'd think after a year straight manufacturers would realize they need a few short ramps in production.

They can't , people forget it's not ASUS , EVGA or even Nvidia or AMD that are the ones in full control over how many GPUs are being produced. It's TSMC and GloFo that are mostly responsible for that , they can only produce so many chips and if AMD/Nvidia want more it costs a fortune and a lot of time to get it going. It's a risk they are not willing to make especially not after AMD ended up with a crap ton of unsold Hawaii chips years ago after the mining bubble burst.

To put things into perspective it makes much more sense for someone like TSMC to sell most of their wafers to Apple , Qualcomm and other fabless manufacturers of silicon used for smartphones since that market is absolutely huge and it will remain like that consistently.

 

[Robcostyle]

Thats just stupid, not even ridiculous.

GTX 1050 Ti are already being sold for 260$ In my country. 1060 for 450, 1070 are absent, with last update pricetags all over 650$. Won’t even tell how much 70 and 80 ti cost - those numbers make the Titan V sense-full purchase.

So where the hell are all those antimonoly comissions? Thinking more often about that they have their cut in this business, so they let the prices rise to the sky...

 

[neatfeatguy]

My god..when will it end...

It'll all end once Intel stops doing stupid stuff......

So, never.

 

[Aquinus]

It'll all end once Intel stops doing stupid stuff......

It will end when AMD has something more than a 580 to compete with because Vega is nowhere to be found and it just enables nVidia to keep prices high because there is nothing that can compete at current. Mix that in with absurd memory prices and you have this situation where you're spending 800-1000 dollars on just freaking memory and GPU alone for a high-end build.

 

[plåtburken]

Nothing new, this trend has been ongoing since the fall of ATI(aka when AMD bought them up).

 

[Aquinus]

Nothing new, this trend has been ongoing since the fall of ATI(aka when AMD bought them up).

No, this is a problem we've had since AMD tried to start using HBM. I recall several good GPUs since AMD devoured ATi.

 

[Crustybeaver]

With DDR4 prices doubling and GPU prices set to rise further it's questionable whether 2018 is a time to build or upgrade a PC

 

[trog100]

the situation could get worse beyond 2018.. that is what you have to guess at..

trog

 

[Manu_PT]

No wonder consoles are beating every past videogame industry records (PS4 72 million units sold in 4 year life, N Switch 12 million in few months).

In 2018 people are not willing to spend 220€ on 16gb DDR4, 350€ on a barely maxed out 1080p 60fps GPU and 300€ for a good IPC CPU, to play videogames at their desk. Is 2018 and with these prices, good luck.

 

[Basard]

There are PLENTY of great games that I can play, enough to ride this out for eternity. F*** the industry right now. Pricks.

 

[R0H1T]

From what little I know about mining it seems to go in cycles. It's profitable again right now so when it becomes less profitable supplies probably will increase and prices drop some. I'm hoping this happens at some point in 2018 as I want to upgrade to 4K and need a better card for what I want.

The thing is with mining being en vogue, especially as an investment option via futures & exchanges, I doubt the demand for GPU (mining) will go down anytime soon.

 

[ppn]

Wait what. Wasn't Ampere supposed to be out in a few months, Who cares about antiques Pascal based cards now, except for mining. honestly I am not buying GTX 1070 now that it is 19 months old at the launch price+20%, and now unavailable due to mining again. That is ancient in GPU years, on a death bed, and usually next generation is 25-75% faster.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Wasn't Ampere supposed to be out in a few months

Nope, don't think so. Every indication from NVidia has been it will be awhile.

And really, ancient or not in GPU years, 1060 (6GB) and up play virtually anything in their associated resolutions they were designed for.

 

[Easo]

Please stop already...
I guess my upgrade will still have to wait.

 

[_JP_]

So, no upgrades until 2020. I can hold myself and those within my reach running fine until then.
With these hikes, OEM parts start looking competitive with all the Enterprise premium attached...
Raising prices when some economic contraction starts happening should send a message with reduced prices by the end of the year....hopefully.
Just kinda wished my 280X was the 6GB variant

 

[Casecutter]

I capitulate that we're at the mercy of the TSCM or GloFlo, and they've more demand than output, while remember not all that demand is exclusively for AMD/Nvidia.

For AMD they've pretty much all their eggs at GloFo, and have to adjust that "mix" between Ryzen, TR, EPYC, Vega, and 2 variants of Polaris; while then Corporate custom designs (Xbox, PS, Apple/now Intel etc.). Then now there's Ryzen II, and probably now Vega11 (Polaris II) in production that AMD has to juggle starts to maintain markets, sales channels, and profits (that always a good place to be). They sure aren't looking to produce and dumping chips they don't have contracts for, or aren't seeing huge mark-up on (aka Polaris). I'm sure they're building Vega 11 parts, and have told AIB's this is the new price and if mining "goes bust", they'll rebate cost back to them in special cases, but till then AMD won't sell them cheap. (They're not a charity!) Vega... it's strange in they've fulfilled Apple's upfront requirement (to some degree), while it looks like the Intel marriage will suck-out even more production at some point. For gamers "for-get-about" it... seeing any at decent prices is vaporware. I'm sure Ryzen II while being a nice "tick improvement"... so will prices, and less folks will be making upgrades (memory & Graphics $$$!), while I think AMD will see more "wins" in OEM's especially in APU Raven Ridge both in Desktops & Laptops.

Nvidia will slow their roll on GeForce next gen, with them sell everything the have wafer commitments for, while they might adjust starts up, with GDDR memory expensive and tight supplies they can't really fill the pipe. (That 1060 5Gb is an off shot of this whole memory dynamic...it's also why AMD isn't doing a lot with Polaris and 8Gb are through the roof again!) Nvidia will place their focus on the professional market as they have commitments to HPC projects that they are compelled to supply.

At this point my boy's are pigeon-holing cash to have chance at Vega 11 hitting soon (580 replacement) with decent bump, but really just hoping there's stock on AIB aftermarket part that aren't priced in the stratosphere... They're still holding...one with a 280, the other a 280X.

My god..when will it end...

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

No, this is a problem we've had since AMD tried to start using HBM. I recall several good GPUs since AMD devoured ATi.

Err titan remember that ,it started Nvidia on 3 gpu teirs ,that started the price hikes around gtx680 release ,you know the mid range card Nvidia fans went mad for because Nvidia labelled it high end , which to be fair in its time it performed well as.

This was way before mining and hbm came about.

Then mining came and went ,now its back.

 

[Vya Domus]

Err titan remember that ,it started Nvidia on 3 gpu teirs ,that started the price hikes around gtx680 release ,you know the mid range card Nvidia fans went mad for because Nvidia labelled it high end , which to be fair in its time it performed well as.

It's funny how quickly people forget when this trend of absurd pricing for GPUs actually began and who popularized it. What I find even funnier is how some are annoyed and quote AMD's lacking products in the high end to be the reason for the high prices. Matter of the fact is when the 1000 series dropped there was no mining craze and AMD was supposedly still in the race , people expected a high end chip form them by fall. Of course it didn't matter what happened because they all payed 800$ without even blinking on day one.

It's amazing how people come up with a million reasons on why we have this situation instead of admitting we as a customers destroyed any chance of having decently priced hardware by shelling out at every overpriced second grade silicon we got thrown our way.

I said it previously and I'll say it again , people want a '1000$ iPhone X' in the GPU market. Let them have it and pay every penny for it.

 

[kanecvr]

It's funny how quickly people forget when this trend of absurd pricing for GPUs actually began and who popularized it. What I find even funnier is how some are annoyed and quote AMD's lacking products in the high end to be the reason for the high prices. Matter of the fact is when the 1000 series dropped there was no mining craze and AMD was supposedly still in the race , people expected a high end chip form them by fall. Of course it didn't matter what happened because they all payed 800$ without even blinking on day one.

It's amazing how people come up with a million reasons on why we have this situation instead of admitting we as a customers destroyed any chance of having decently priced hardware by shelling out at every overpriced second grade silicon we got thrown our way.

I said it previously and I'll say it again , people want a '1000$ iPhone X' in the GPU market. Let them have it and pay every penny for it.

Well, there's also the second hand market. Got lucky and after months of waiting and browsing forums and ebay like sites, and snatched a boxed MSI Armor GTX 1080 for ~400$, complete with 21 month warranty. The card is used, but it was only 3 months old. Dunno why the previous owner sold it (and sold it cheap), and I don't care. I've had the card for a month and a half, it runs great, the blower style cooler is surprisingly quiet (quieter then the four 120mm fans attached to my AIW cpu cooler when the thing runs all six cores @ 4.4 GHz) and temps are OK.

I guess buying second hand hardware is a way to have your cake and eat it too. My money did not go to nvidia for a new card, and I got an upgrade. Still, some sacrifices had to be made - I pushed back my plans to upgrade to ryzen, but in the meantime I managed to fix a X79 motherboard (turns out one mosfet popped and one was going bad - shitty Asus VRM design as usual) and am now happily running a i7 3930k I had in my collection. The rig is a far cry from the i5 760 I was stuck with a couple of months ago, so overall I'm pretty happy. Considering current RAM prices I don't regret the decision - I just couldn't pass up a 1080 for that money (especially considering one retails for 650-700$ list price, and when this model is in stock, the price can jump over 750$ in some stores). Pretty sure the card was used for mining since the guy was selling 12 of them, all second had, all complete with boxes and 21 month warranty at the same e-tailer.

 

[Upgrayedd]

1070 Ti just went from $470 to $540.

That's insane. Wtf is going on? Isn't that around what the 980 Ti went for?