RTX 30 series graphics cards, which occupy several spots on our best graphics cards list, are becoming significantly cheaper than they were just a few months ago. According to 3DCenter.org, Nvidia's 30 series cards are dropping in price at a faster rate than AMD's RX 6000 series of GPUs in the German market, giving us hope that prices of Nvidia's cards may continue to inch toward MSRP.
According to a graphics card price chart from 3DCenter.org, RX 6000 series cards (taken as a percentage of German MSRP) were priced closer to list pricing than their Nvidia equivalents for effectively the first half of 2021. But now that we're in the month of August, GPU prices for Nvidia cards have continued to drop (albeit at a slower pace since July), while AMD's prices have started to climb, and the two company's cards have swapped places.
The huge downtrend in the price for RTX graphics cards cannot be overstated. In May, Nvidia cards were at selling above 300% of MSRP for a short period of time. But since then, the inflation has reduced by a substantial amount, down to 191% just a month later, and now 150% in August.
For AMD on the other hand, prices have remained relatively static by comparison. In May, RX 6000 cards also hit a recent peak, at 214%, but that inflation has only dropped to 159% this month.
That said, given the context of AMD's production situation, these inflation numbers are not surprising. We found out a few days ago that in terms of current-gen silicon, AMD appears to be selling significantly fewer graphics cards than Nvidia, at least based on recent players that are active on Steam. In essence, for every one RX 6000 graphics card active on the service, eleven payers own RTX 30 series cards.
So if anything, we suspect AMD cards could either continue to rise in price, or remain near their current rate for a longer period of time than Nvidia's cards.
But, even if you are buying an RTX 30 series card, these price reductions do not mean supply will get any better. It just means getting current scalper prices should be lower. On the bright side, cheaper prices should also mean volume is improving, and getting us ever closer to a world where the average gamer can pick something up without having to take out a second mortgage.
