We have hit an odd point in which some GPU vendors may have too many cards on hand. Galax today kicked off a price guarantee promotion in partnership with JD.com, one of China's largest online retailers for electronics. The promotion, spotted by ITHome, spans from today to June 18, so one could secure a guarantee of a refund if a GPU drops over the next two months.
With many graphics card model prices falling precipitously this year, it seems that potential buyers are waiting to see where prices will land. It seems gamers and enthusiasts are holding strong, resisting temptation in the hope that the cards eventually come close to the manufacturers' suggested retail price. This cool standoffishness appears to be working.
You can see we have chopped up and translated the Galax promotional infographic above. In case you don't want to flick through the slides, here they are:
- Galax RTX graphics cards can be bought in a price guarantee promotion event via JD.com from April 15 until June 18, 2022.
- Purchase the designated models during the sale event to enjoy up to two months price guarantee.
- In the JD app, find the Galax GPU products with one click price protection. Purchase them to enjoy the price guarantee. If there is any difficulty you can contact customer service.
The promotional infographic shares the list of graphics cards that qualify for the promotion, which appears to include most of Galax's current GeForce Ampere graphics cards starting from RTX 3060 models all the way up to the newest and most powerful RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards. Interestingly, there are no RTX 3070 GPUs in the promotion, and this SKU seems to have been harder to come by in many regions.
Should Graphics Card Buyers Give in Yet?
This promotion is only occurring in China, and we don't know if anything similar will come to retailers in the west.
Graphics card makers must see pricing charts as clearly as we do, and will be highly motivated to sell now, before further drops occur. In much the same way as mail-in rebates can attract buyers who then forget or don't bother with the rebate for some reason – vendors could benefit from the same behavior.
We don't know much about JD.com's customer service quality, so be careful if you attempt to buy, especially from outside of China. Comments on ITHome regarding JD.com and qualifying for the price guarantee aren't very positive. Moreover many cynically predict sizable price cuts arriving on June 19.
