GPU Oversupply Spills Onto the Streets in Vietnam

New tactics for selling used GPUs
(Image credit: Lê Thành on Facebook)

Vietnam's Lê Thành, the self-proclaimed 'King of VGA,' is having some fun on Facebook (via I_Leak_VN). In photos and videos shared on the social media site, it looks like the store has started to use street trader tactics to grab passersby and sell them GPUs by the kilo.

Lê Thành shared pictures of dozens of used GPUs stacked up on the curbside in a clear parody of a Vietnamese street food stall. There is also a video with the vendor patiently waving away flies with a net, awaiting passersby. Then, a scooter stops, and the rider buys a bundle of GPUs after the seller weighs them, then drives off with them in a flimsy red takeaway bag. Other photos show the street seller waving used GPUs at scooter riders in the street. Moreover, there are stacks and stacks of GPUs shown in Lê Thành's shop, with all the major brands represented.

There has been plenty of talk about graphics card oversupply in the post-Ethereum GPU mining era. Indeed, we have seen consumer graphics card prices slide since this tech event. Even leading up to the death of GPU mining, the crypto business was running out of steam as coin valuations dropped precipitously, and recessionary forces started to grip the world. The widespread ending of pandemic-related lockdowns didn't do consumer electronic sales any favors, as did the squeeze on disposable income due to rising energy prices.

GPU makers have reflected the cooling of demand in recent financials. As a result, most have a gloomy outlook for the coming months but appear to hope for relief in the New Year. In the case of Nvidia, the biggest discrete GPU vendor by quite some margin, it expects sales of its gaming and professional graphics processors to decline quarter-over-quarter. However, it seems to be g well with its hot-selling GeForce RTX 4090 and high-end accelerators to China before US sanctions bite later in 2023.

Have readers noticed an abundance of used GPUs at attractive prices where they live? Naturally, it is easy to be tempted to upgrade, but buyers should beware of buying a used model of unknown provenance.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • Co BIY
    I'm glad to see people having fun with a challenge!
    Reply
  • ThatMouse
    The 3080 I bought 3 months ago is still the same price and goes in and out of stock and I don't see any 4090's in stock but whatever.
    Reply
  • RX6500 XT or GTX1660 are both well over $200 new, where I live. I don't see any big price drops. Perhaps cards like RX6900 or RTX3090 got cheaper, but I'm not interested in that price segment.
    Used cards are expensive as well. I wanted to buy used RX5500 XT or GTX1660 and it's only $50 less, so... No, ridiculous card prices are still a thing even today.

    I got lucky and bought Asus Expedition RX570 4GB for around $80. It was a mining card and needed Bios change, but now it works just fine.
    Reply
  • pf100
    ThatMouse said:
    The 3080 I bought 3 months ago is still the same price and goes in and out of stock and I don't see any 4090's in stock but whatever.
    Last week in the U.S. I bought a used 3080 in like new condition for $450 on ebay. Yes, it took a few days of watching ebay, but cards like that are there.
    Reply
  • punkncat
    The important factor to note here is that mid and low level cards often weren't part of the crypto craze and prices for them have not fallen much. The high end cards are where the deals are, if you are willing to take the risk.
    Reply
  • plateLunch
    punkncat said:
    The high end cards are where the deals are...
    Yeah, that was something I was expecting. But if the price of I end cards drop enough, they should pull demand from the mid and low end cards and cause their prices to drop too.

    The high end card market should be saturated if videos like this have a grain of truth and miners are dumping cards. Could something else be happening to keep these mining cards off the market?
    Reply
  • bit_user
    tommo1982 said:
    RX6500 XT or GTX1660 are both well over $200 new, where I live. I don't see any big price drops. Perhaps cards like RX6900 or RTX3090 got cheaper, but I'm not interested in that price segment.
    Used cards are expensive as well. I wanted to buy used RX5500 XT or GTX1660 and it's only $50 less, so... No, ridiculous card prices are still a thing even today.
    I think Nvidia and its partners are probably doing everything possible to prop up prices on new cards. If they lose pricing discipline, the market will fall apart quickly and take a long time to rebuild.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    punkncat said:
    The important factor to note here is that mid and low level cards often weren't part of the crypto craze and prices for them have not fallen much. The high end cards are where the deals are, if you are willing to take the risk.
    Yes and no. Their prices got inflated because silicon production constraints, but also due to displaced demand from higher-end cards.

    Now that the demand has fallen, it's not unreasonable to expect some pricing relaxation. Working against that is inflation. Perhaps as demand slackening works its way all the way back to TSMC, we'll finally see production prices fall enough to enable price cuts in the new price of these cards.

    I guess the main takeaway is that things are still in flux. We should give it a little more time, and then see where things settle out.
    Reply
  • WINTERLORD
    That is so crazy so what they doing In Vietnam buy a kilo of cards and ur guaranteed to get atleast one good one lol,

    People from that area of the world know all about the giant farms the way they treat the hardware though danm they clearly made there money and are just getting some extra

    But in all honesty this looks like Nvidia propaganda try to get people to buy new but yeah such a gamble for a high priced card
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    plateLunch said:
    But if the price of high end cards drop enough, they should pull demand from the mid and low end cards and cause their prices to drop too.

    This could happen ... but the reality of how few mid-high and high cards are ever sold compared to the size of the low-end market means that a large splash in the high-end market might only result in a ripple in the bigger low-end pool.
    Reply