According to ComputerBase, graphics card prices have begun to drop as much as 50% in Europe. Availability has also improved significantly, with sales of most GPU models from both AMD and Nvidia doubling month-over-month. This report comes on the heels of ASRock, a GPU maker, noting that GPU pricing is easing as demand from Chinese cryptocurrency miners wanes.
More budget-oriented cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT are seeing the most positive results, with a near 50% drop in price compared to last month. For flagship cards like the RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT, however, prices haven't moved as much. They have dipped a respectable 10-15% which is still a very positive change considering the shortage issues plaguing the technology industry.
In the United States, GPU pricing is slowly catching up to Europe, but it's still going down nonetheless. A Redditor named 'u/xclm' has created a chart comparing GPU prices of cards sold on eBay with the amount of mining horsepower it's capable of, over the course of the past month.
He found that prices are dropping reasonably well with a 20% average price drop for all cards this month compared to May, and the higher-performing cards like the RTX 3090 have seen an even higher drop of 32% in price.
This change in market behavior is mostly attributed to China regulating crypto mining, and the big drop in the value of large cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin. The situation has reduced demand from miners and at the same time is forcing miners to sell off large batches of graphics cards. That's a big difference from the first quarter of the year, when 700,000 GPUs were reportedly shipped to cryptominers.
It appears the graphics card shortage may be seeing the end of its days as Europe and American GPU prices start to drop. Don't expect a complete restoration anytime soon, but hopefully this means more people will be able to get graphics cards at more reasonable prices.
