Our GPU pricing index shows a very strong correlation between eBay prices and potential Ethereum mining profits. The good news is that Ethereum's price has mostly settled down during the past month, after a massive jump in early May. Combined with increased mining difficulty, that means lower profits and less reason for miners to buy all the graphics cards. For the first time since we started tracking eBay prices back in February 2021, we're seeing a downward trend on nearly every GPU in our list. (The one exception: RX 6900 XT, which went up a small 1.3% since mid-May.)
It could be that the recent launch of the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti are also partly to blame for the dropping prices. Those both have Nvidia's hashrate limiter, and the 3080 Ti in particular had a lot of units sold (on eBay at least) since its launch. We've added both cards to our list, but there's no "historical" data to compare them with just yet. Also: Both are incredibly overpriced, relative to the official MSRPs. Here's the data from early June.
| Graphics Card | Avg eBay Price | QTY Sold | Price Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 3090 | $3,002 | 491 | -4.4% |
| GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | $2,307 | 621 | N/A |
| GeForce RTX 3080 | $1,978 | 1114 | -11.5% |
| GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | $1,407 | 42 | N/A |
| GeForce RTX 3070 | $1,300 | 1258 | -8.5% |
| GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | $1,238 | 264 | -12.6% |
| GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | $874 | 693 | -3.9% |
| Radeon RX 6900 XT | $1,884 | 93 | 1.3% |
| Radeon RX 6800 XT | $1,487 | 153 | -6.0% |
| Radeon RX 6800 | $1,260 | 109 | -8.1% |
| Radeon RX 6700 XT | $915 | 303 | -5.6% |
Hooray for lower prices! Boo for still-too-high prices!
The good news, as mentioned already, is that every GPU (other than the 6900 XT) has gone down in price on eBay since our previous update. Interestingly, the RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 show the biggest dip, of nearly 10% on the 3070, and over 10% on the other two cards. All three of these GPUs are now shipping in LHR (Lite Hash rate) models, with the previous higher hashrate variants being 'retired.' Only the RTX 3090 remains untouched on hashrate, and it saw less of a drop.
Of course there's another element to the story. With the launch of the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti, Nvidia has added two more cards that use the same GPUs as existing models. It claimed that these are in addition to cards already on the market, but compared to data from one month ago, the quantity of cards sold dropped for many of the GPUs — RTX 3090 units were down 35%, 3080 was down 5%, 3070 was down 25%, 3060 Ti went up 1%, and the RTX 3060 dropped by 19%. AMD's unit sales are also down in general, by 27% for the 6900 XT, 5% on the RX 6800, and 29% on the RX 6700 XT; only the RX 6800 XT showed an increase in units sold of 9%.
More critically, compared to the first two weeks of May (see the next page for details), the total number of GPUs sold on eBay was lower by 240 units for Nvidia and 154 units for AMD. That means Nvidia's introduction of two new GPUs didn't increase supply of GPUs on eBay at least.
Since we're looking only at sold listings on eBay, it's difficult to say how much the trends we see there correlate with the larger graphics card market. JPR estimated about 700,000 GPUs were sold to miners last quarter, which would also mean around 2.8 million discrete graphics cards total were sold. By our estimates, only 30,000 GPUs were sold (or resold) on eBay during that same time.
Overall, most of the graphics cards are still averaging prices of over 2x the official MSRPs, with the RTX 3080 Ti (1.9x), RX 6900 XT (1.9x), and RX 6700 XT (also 1.9x) being the exceptions. The worst 'deals' on eBay continue to be the RTX 3080 (2.8x) and RTX 3060 Ti (3.1x), with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 doing slightly better at only 2.6x MSRP. Along with the 3080 Ti, the RTX 3070 Ti also lands closer to its MSRP, at 'only' 2.3x the MSRP. And just to complete the list, the RX 6800 XT costs 2.3x its MSRP while the RX 6800 is 2.2x its MSRP.
Nvidia outsold AMD — on eBay — by a factor of 6.8 to 1, which is higher than previous updates. Nvidia also has substantially higher prices overall, so the total dollar value of GPUs purchased off eBay (Ampere vs. RDNA2) favored Nvidia by a 9.5 to 1 ratio. The RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 were the most popular cards overall for Nvidia, and AMD's RX 6700 XT continues to account for more sales than the other three RX 6000-series GPUs combined.
Weekly Summary: Heading Downhill?
One thing that's clear after tracking GPU prices and cryptocurrency profitability for the past several months is that nothing is clear. Cryptocurrencies can be so volatile that what looks like the start of a downward or upward trend can quickly reverse course. But! Right now, prices and profitability look like they're finally heading in the right direction.
We're still many months away from seeing 'normal' prices, even if the current downward trend continues. The impact of Covid and the increased demand for graphics cards hasn't fully let up either, so all miners could halt GPU purchases and we still wouldn't have enough graphics cards to go around. Maybe by fall, though, we could see prices only 25% above MSRP instead of 125% above MSRP. We hope.
On a related note, the profitability of Chia farming has also tanked during the past few weeks, with netspace ballooning and still no proper pooled farming support. Maybe interest in Chia temporarily reduced the interest in GPU mining, though neither seems likely to disappear just yet.
Flip to the next page for a look at historical charts and data.
