Are GPU Prices Finally Back to Normal?
After two long years of inflated GPU prices, it seems that prices have returned to MSRP. Or have they?
The recent crypto crash has led many cryptominers to simply give up. With Bitcoin down $10,000 and Ethereum down 40% over the course of the past month, GPUs are slowly trickling out of the hands of those in control of mining rigs and back into the hands of avid gamers, video editors, and other computing enthusiasts.
This isn’t to say that the cryptominers have been in complete control of the GPU market. Though it sounds very simple, high GPU prices have been a result of fundamental supply and demand principles. Due to the pandemic, supply of silicon semiconductors has been very low, influencing products like car consoles, phones, and GPUs. The release of new generation graphics cards from NVIDIA and AMD back in 2020 got gamers hyped up to play their favorite titles in 4K and even 8K resolutions (in the case of the NVIDIA 3090). As a result, demand shot up as people looked to upgrade their last generation graphics cards for new ones that promised unprecedented gaming performance.
If this supply and demand issue wasn’t already severe enough, the pandemic also influenced people’s interests and hobbies, particularly leaning more and more people toward gaming. With school and work being conducted completely online, it made sense to also maintain social interactions online through videogames.
We’re still not done yet. In recent years, efforts have been made by gaming communities and developers to actively include female gamers (through reporting toxicity or just marketing/developing more toward the female audience). Gaming, which was is often thought as being male-dominated, has been fairly equal in terms of representation from both sexes in recent years. Just in 2021, 45% of gamers in the US identified as female. The pandemic, alongside cultural and social shifts, has resulted in larger female representation in the gaming community — in other words, more players and thus, greater demand for gaming hardware.
I could go on and on about various factors that increased demand or decreased supply, but I think I’ve made my point clear. GPU prices have been inflated for roughly two years now, beginning with the release of the NVIDIA 30 series in the last quarter of 2020. They’re finally starting to come back down to normal.
Should I buy a used card?
No, not really. But in comparison to people bidding up to $80,000 for an RTX 3080 in the past, prices are much better now. You won’t necessarily find a brand new NVIDIA 30 series card for MSRP, but you should be able to find them hovering at or below MSRP if they are used.
Both of these GPU listings are for sale on eBay, when filtering for used items, and they are actually well below the MSRP price of $699. Of course, there comes an inevitable concern with purchasing a used card — namely, the potential damage/wear that the card may have endured through mining.
Most people looking to buy a used graphics card aren’t necessarily concerned if an item was used for gaming or 3D rendering; they’re focused on whether or not the card had a history of mining cryptocurrency.
Mining crypto is a not so different from playing graphically-intensive games, at least, inherently. But the two become quite different when the uptime of the GPU is taken into consideration. Games aren’t usually idled for 24/7, and even if they were, they aren’t likely running at maximum graphics in the most computationally-dependent situation possible. On the other hand, mining crypto will cause your GPU to work hard, and if you want to accumulate any reasonable profit, it will be working hard for long periods of time (or just perpetually).
It’s important to note that “degrade” is probably a better term to use than “damage.” When a GPU is used for gaming or video editing, we don’t really think of such tasks “damaging” the GPU. Instead, they are utilizing the graphics card’s theoretical “lifespan.” The same goes for GPUs in mining rigs. The more that they are used to mine, the more their lifespan has degraded.
Remember that no piece of hardware (PC components) lasts forever — if you’re considering a used GPU, it might just have a shorter lifespan than a new, unused one. At the same time, your GPU’s lifespan is largely dependent on how you use it and how you take care of it. Will you also be mining with the already-used GPU? Are you just looking to play some games? How often do you clean your PC? These are all questions that can greatly influence how long your hardware will last.
So, is there a concrete answer for whether or not you should buy a used graphics card? Though I hate answering a question without actually supplying a meaningful answer, I have to say that it depends. If I had to lean toward one answer more, I would say that it’s not a bad idea.
If you’re not looking to do anything intensive, then buying a used GPU for less than MSRP is already a pretty good deal as prices stand right now. This is especially true if you can find out the history of the used card that you’re buying. The seller may be open to questions regarding the product’s usage, and that can give you a better idea of how worn it is — how much of its lifespan that it may have “lost.” In the case of very light idle mining, the impact isn’t too significant. In some sense, you can treat it like a graphics card that was used for gaming (which, as we established earlier, isn’t something that we think of as “damaged”).
What hasn’t been considered yet is time. GPU prices will inevitably have its ups and downs, and for the imminent future, we can be hopeful and predict that prices will continue to decrease. So does that mean you should wait? That depends on the utility you might get from purchasing it earlier for a higher price. Perhaps you’re free from school, or work, or whatever usually takes up a large chunk of your schedule. Paying an extra $50 or $100 for a GPU now, while you are free to utilize the product may be more valuable than a cheaper GPU a few months down the line, when you are busy with schoolwork.
Ultimately, the decision is up to you. Most of what I’ve stated is fairly obvious, and is largely centered around your decision being dependent on your situation (which can be said for anything, really). But for now, let’s just hope that prices truly return to normal and stay that way. My heart won’t be able to handle another GPU crisis when my current card fizzles out.
Sources
https://www.thegamer.com/crypto-crash-cheap-gpus-have-returned/
