eBay Historical GPU Prices 2023: November 2023 Update

Below is the original text for our look at GPU prices for the month of February, 2022. The text below here has not been edited since the original post.
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GPU prices in February continued the downward plunge, and this time every single GPU we checked dropped at least a few percentage points in price. Overall, the average price of a GPU dropped by 12% compared to the previous month, but much of that is due to higher volumes (relatively speaking) on the lower priced parts.

As we've mentioned before, GPU prices on eBay tend to mimic the profitability of cryptocurrency mining, albeit with a bit less volatility. Bitcoin started February hovering in the $38,500 range, before dipping below $37,000, rebounding to over $45,000, and then dropping once again to a low of less than $35,000, with the current price sitting at just over $41,000. Did we mention the volatility of cryptocurrencies? Yeah. Ethereum followed a similar pattern, starting the month at around $2,700 range, reaching a high of $3,257, and dropping to a low of $2,337.

GPU prices are thus a trailing indicator when you take the long view of things. Daily prices can fluctuate quite a bit, but they're never quite as volatile as the cryptocurrencies they track. Much of the downward trend continues because of the massive drop in crypto mining profitability from its peak in early 2021, and prices are still in search of a new equilibrium. Here's a look back at the month of February 2022.

If you flip to the next page, you can see that every GPU dropped in price, but the quantity of GPUs sold on eBay also dropped on most of the cards. The exceptions are mostly the GPUs that launched last month: The RTX 3050 arrived at the end of January and sold just 17 cards at an average price of $539 the first month, compared to selling 330 cards with an average price of $455 in February. Similarly, there were only 14 RX 6500 XT cards sold in January at an average price of $365, compared to 124 GPUs sold with an average price of $272 in February. The RTX 3080 12GB also had better availability and prices, though still fewer than 100 were sold during the entire month.

Overall, the average eBay selling price for a GPU in February was $1,094, compared to $1,248 in January. Remember when everyone was appalled at the launch price of $1,199 for the RTX 2080 Ti back in the day? Thousands of people are paying that much and more for a graphics card upgrade right now, all thanks to cryptocurrency miners and the pandemic induced shortages.

There were fewer cards sold on eBay as the prices declined, which makes sense if you consider the source of most of these sales. Scalpers and other profiteers are hoping to milk buyers for as much money as possible, but they also need to turn a profit. If a potential scalper bought a card like the RTX 3060 for $600, selling it on eBay for $636 would be a net loss, once eBay takes its ~14% share of the sale price. Put another way, there are plenty of cards still being offered at inflated prices, but fewer fish are biting.

Overall, AMD continues to offer the best value, with the RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT taking the top two places in terms of FPS/$. The RX 6700 XT comes in third, and even the mediocre RX 6500 XT takes fourth place overall — thanks to its sub-$300 price point. But it should really be a sub-$150 card, so don't jump at the "opportunity" to overpay for a GPU just yet, whether it's a budget card sold at high-end prices, or a high-end card sold at an extreme price! We expect the downward trend in GPU prices to continue throughout 2022.

GPU prices on previous generation cards followed a similar pattern, though with an interesting twist in that 10% more previous generation GPUs were sold compared to December. AMD's RX 5500 XT, both the 4GB and 8GB models, showed the biggest price drop, falling around 20%. Part of that is likely due to the 6500 XT launch, but considering the 8GB card performs better overall, it's the better pick right now. Nvidia GTX 1660 models, all three of them, also dropped 10–14% in price, possibly thanks to the previously pending RTX 3050 arrival.

The average markup on the previous generation GPUs is still 66% over the launch MSRPs, sadly, so none of these are truly good deals. Still, they're getting better, bit by bit. As you can probably guess, the GPUs that deliver the highest relative mining performance for their price, like the GTX 1660 Super and RX 5700/5700 XT, have the biggest markups.

It's interesting that, where Nvidia outsold AMD by a ratio of 5.1 to 1 for the latest generation GPUs, that ratio drops to just 2.9 to 1 for previous generation cards. The total number of cards sold didn't change much compared to December, but the RX 5700, RX 5600 XT, and RX 5500 XT 8GB units sold increased by 30–75%.

In terms of best value, the RX 5500 XT 4GB takes the top position, followed by the GTX 1650 Super. Given the cost of the rest of the system, however, we'd try to finagle an RX 6600 into the budget if possible, as it's a much better GPU overall. Or, you know, just keep waiting and hopefully the current trend continues.

GPU Prices Summary: Going Down, Down...

While there's a very strong correlation between GPU prices and cryptocurrency prices, the former usually trails the latter, with less dynamic swings. With cryptocurrency valuations dropping 35% on Bitcoin and 45% on Ethereum over the past two months, there was no way GPUs would continue to sell at their previous prices. At the same time, miners aren't the only ones buying graphics cards, so while prices did head south, it was only to the tune of a 5–10% dip in most cases.

With the RTX 3050 and RX 6500 XT launches now in the rearview mirror, we can also hope that overall supply of graphics cards will improve across all price segments, further helping to bring down prices. Of course, if we were cynical [raises hand...], we'd also suggest that AMD and Nvidia might be averse to flooding the market and getting prices back to 'normal.'

You only need to look at the two recent launches to see how the base level MSRPs are pretty much meaningless. All the factory overclocked models sell at radically inflated prices, even if the overclock is only 1–2%. Would an add-in card partner prefer to list a card at AMD's or Nvidia's MSRP, or would they rather apply a tiny overclock, tack on "OC" in the name, and mark the price up by 50% or more? Since the scalpers and retailers are just going to mark up prices regardless, you can guess that most of the supply will end up with higher MSRPs.

There's one potential 'savior' for graphics cards still waiting in the wings, though. The Intel Arc graphics cards are supposed to launch in the next month or two. Intel appears to be going after laptops first, and it's really hard to say how prices, availability, and performance will truly match up to the existing AMD and Nvidia cards. (Hint: Geekbench is not a meaningful look at gaming performance.) We suspect the entry-level Intel Arc solutions will try to compete with the RX 6500 XT and similar cards, which isn't saying a lot, but perhaps real-world prices will be more attractive. We'll find out more soon enough.

For now, we continue to play the waiting game. Graphics might not be as impressive as on some of the latest games, but at least the price is right.