If things continue to go the way they are going, consumers may finally be able to find the best graphics cards at more reasonable prices. Mind you, we say more reasonable because it'll probably be a while before we ever see graphics cards at their MSRP again. We're still deep into the global semiconductor shortage so prices are apparently improving, but stock is another topic.
According to the latest data that Germany publication 3DCenter recently published, graphics card prices have plummeted in Germany and Austria in the last couple of months. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) graphics cards, which was at a record high 304% in May, plunged to 153% this month. In addition, AMD's Radeon RX 6000 (Big Navi) saw a nosedive from 214% to 153% as well.
As you can see from 3DCenter's chart, graphics card prices started going downhill in June, which is also when Bitcoin and Ethereum suffered heavy losses in their values. China's crackdown on cryptocurrency mining farms played a large role in this happening. The Chinese government's iron hand sent cryptocurrency miners fleeing the country to relocate their operations elsewhere. The smaller miners resorted to selling their graphics cards in the hundreds on the second-hand markets. As a result, graphics card pricing in China has fallen nearly 45% in May.
In addition to Bitcoin and Ethereum's price drops and Beijing's cryptocurrency repression, Nvidia launching its Lite Hash Rate (LHR) versions of its existing Ampere graphics cards also helped further push the prices down a bit. Retailers and scalpers still get away with selling graphics card at absurd prices because of the shortage. However, stock is better since consumers don't have to fight with the miners at the checkout line.
Assuming that nothing significant affects the trend, graphics card pricing should continue to drop until reaching January-like levels by August. That doesn't mean that we'll see MSRP pricing, though. Even early January pricing had graphics card at 27% (Nvidia) and 40% (AMD) over their MSRP. 3DCenter's data only shows the pricing behavior for Germany and Austria, however, we should expect to see a similar tendency in the global markets.
