When will Video Card prices come down lower?

sh0rty said:
I hear ya, but like you I am watching discords and seen plenty of cards drop that I could have gotten at reasonable pricing. I think the bundles are garbage unless you are needing those things. Just last week there was a Best buy drop of almost all cards and PS5s. I got what I needed like you, but also see this kind of constant monitoring in order to instant click to get the item is ridiculous...BUT it worked.
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I've said for a while that if you put a mild amount of effort in, there's no reason why you wouldn't have a card at this point. People just like complaining I guess.

That being said, nobody likes paying exorbitant extra costs. I haven't tried to hit a BB drop in months since I have a card.
 
I think the scallping trend has really thrown it all even further away from the average consumer. GPUs have always been available-----if you are willing to pay over double, sometimes triple the "normal" cost. Lots of people can't afford that. And to be able to get one for "normal" cost, has been greatly complicated and turned into "if you do these things, you can have chance at maaaybe getting one".
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't agree. Production of everything is in the toilet. You still can't buy a NIB 5 year old Nintendo Switch at retail just walking into a B&M store. Mining profits are as low as they've been since Ampere/RDNA2 launched, but I can't buy a card anywhere near the MSRP. I mean NE just had a shellshocker where they were charging $470 for a 1660 Super that initially retailed at $229.

At some point people are going to stop with the "crypto bad" mentality and realize there are other factors why things are expensive.
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I think many people including myself associate the beginning of crypto popularity blossoming with the shortage of gpu’s. I just look at a 5 year value chart for btc. I wasn’t crazy, the price of crypto skyrocketed and video cards followed. There was a great correlation. As I’ve said before it’s not all crypto. But I think many people who paid attention to both, can see the similarities.
 
jmilcher said:
I think many people including myself associate the beginning of crypto popularity blossoming with the shortage of gpu’s. I just look at a 5 year value chart for btc. I wasn’t crazy, the price of crypto skyrocketed and video cards followed. There was a great correlation. As I’ve said before it’s not all crypto. But I think many people who paid attention to both, can see the similarities.
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BTC isn't a good example because it hasn't been profitable to mine BTC on video cards in 10 years. In theory, the price of BTC would have practically zero effect on GPU pricing.

The last ETH boom saw a rise in video card prices to astronomical levels, but just as quickly it faded and prices fell and used mining cards were liquidated dirt cheap. This time, ETH lost half it's value and prices still haven't changed. Something other than mining is propping up GPU prices.

Personally, I see mining as a convenient scapegoat when the issues are larger than anyone wants to admit. When Ford is shutting down production on multiple lines of their most profitable vehicles due to chip shortages, there's a problem bigger than mining. I don't see Nvidia/AMD stealing Ford's chips for GPUs obviously, but the lack of product fulfillment across the entire semi-conductor industry is troubling (unless maybe you're Apple or something and just pay out of petty cash for the fab space at the expense of other industries).
 
kirbyrj said:
BTC isn't a good example because it hasn't been profitable to mine BTC on video cards in 10 years. In theory, the price of BTC would have practically zero effect on GPU pricing.
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I think you know what I meant. I have a firm understanding on crypto and how it’s traded and I understand the importance in the price of bitcoin. And anyone else who has a loose understanding, knows what I am saying is true.

But you are right, crypto isn’t the bad guy by itself at least when it comes to gpu prices strictly speaking.
 
jmilcher said:
I think many people including myself associate the beginning of crypto popularity blossoming with the shortage of gpu’s. I just look at a 5 year value chart for btc. I wasn’t crazy, the price of crypto skyrocketed and video cards followed. There was a great correlation. As I’ve said before it’s not all crypto. But I think many people who paid attention to both, can see the similarities.
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The prices of video cards and BTC are basically the opposite for 2018, 2019, and most of 2020. Also worth mentioning, the previous mining boom in 2018 was a down year for bitcoin.

The only time they matched each other was at the start of 2021. So no, there was no trend. Which also explains why nobody was warning of an upcoming crypto mining boom in the 2nd half of 2020.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
The prices of video cards and BTC are basically the opposite for 2018, 2019, and most of 2020. Also worth mentioning, the previous mining boom in 2018 was a down year for bitcoin.

The only time they matched each other was at the start of 2021. So no, there was no trend.
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That’s not at all how I interpret that data I have seen and looked up. But it’s not worth the effort or time to explain, since really it doesn’t even matter much to me. Just an outsider observation shared by more people than just myself.
 
kirbyrj said:
This time, ETH lost half it's value and prices still haven't changed. Something other than mining is propping up GPU prices.
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ETh seem to be much higher than for all of 2020 and a lot of 2021, seem to have very solid correlation between ETH value and ebay GPU sales price, it is just that it never got ever close to go back to September 2020 value it is around 10 time higher.
 
LukeTbk said:
ETh seem to be much higher than for all of 2020 and a lot of 2021, seem to have very solid correlation between ETH value and ebay GPU sales price, it is just that it never got ever close to go back to September 2020 value it is around 10 time higher.
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The price of eth doesn't always coincide with the profitability of mining. Mining profits are still low even with the recent uptrend in crypto prices. When crypto prices dropped to half of the ATH, card prices didn't drop in half (unlike the last crypto winter). There is no direct correlation. At best mining is one of several pricing factors.

An RTX 3050 makes $0.40/day and costs $350+ after tax, but you still can't find one for sale readily. A 3090 went from a 200 day ROI to 400+ days. I think you are seeing casual miners dumping an extra card or two while prices are still high.
 
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GPU prices went down with Eth in the first half of January, but remained steady as Eth climbed +50% in the last 2 weeks.
 
jmilcher said:
I think you know what I meant. I have a firm understanding on crypto and how it’s traded and I understand the importance in the price of bitcoin. And anyone else who has a loose understanding, knows what I am saying is true.

But you are right, crypto isn’t the bad guy by itself at least when it comes to gpu prices strictly speaking.
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I think if anything it is the correlation of BTC pricing to all things crypto (specifically ETH). BTC shouldn't in and of itself affect GPU pricing because GPUs are irrelevant in mining BTC was my point I guess.
 
kirbyrj said:
The price of eth doesn't always coincide with the profitability of mining. Mining profits are still low even with the recent uptrend in crypto prices.

An RTX 3050 makes $0.40/day and costs $350+ after tax, but you still can't find one for sale readily. A 3090 went from a 200 day ROI to 400+ days. I think you are seeing casual miners dumping an extra card or two while prices are still high.
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Impossible to know but do you think if ETH go back to say $350 (like early October 2020) and keep that value only a very short 6 weeks, so loosing almost 88% of is current value, that we would see nothing move price wise ?

kirbyrj said:
An RTX 3050 makes $0.40/day and costs $350+ after tax, but you still can't find one for sale readily. A 3090 went from a 200 day ROI to 400+ days. I think you are seeing casual miners dumping an extra card or two while prices are still high.
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I have .66 a day in place with ok electricity price, more in place with good ones (but the calculator I look on does seem to change a lot from update to update).

If you buy it for $390 with tax and you are confident to re-sales it at least $225, that still a 250 days before any profit but one could speculate for the revenue to stay and if it stay a machine that double your money in less than 750 days is quite magic, doubling your money tended to be a 1000-1800 days affair when things went well.
 
kirbyrj said:
I think if anything it is the correlation of BTC pricing to all things crypto (specifically ETH). BTC shouldn't in and of itself affect GPU pricing because GPUs are irrelevant in mining BTC was my point I guess.
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I realize that. And what I was trying to say was basically most other alt coins and shit coins are ultimately valued on the price of BTC and unicorn pixie dust.
 
kirbyrj said:
The price of eth doesn't always coincide with the profitability of mining. Mining profits are still low even with the recent uptrend in crypto prices. When crypto prices dropped to half of the ATH, card prices didn't drop in half (unlike the last crypto winter). There is no direct correlation. At best mining is one of several pricing factors.

An RTX 3050 makes $0.40/day and costs $350+ after tax, but you still can't find one for sale readily. A 3090 went from a 200 day ROI to 400+ days. I think you are seeing casual miners dumping an extra card or two while prices are still high.
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Most crypto fans think when it drops 50% it’s going to quadruple in a few months, so they wouldn’t stop mining just cause price drops 50%.

I think Lakados mentioned in another thread that Trump’s 25% tariff started on video cards made in China Jan 1 2021, so that’s a good part of the premium over MSRP right there. Are there any cards not made in China?
 
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Varmint said:
Most crypto fans think when it drops 50% it’s going to quadruple in a few months, so they wouldn’t stop mining just cause price drops 50%.
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Yeah, the current value of crypto is not really going to influence current mining rates; only perceived future values will.

That actually could explain some of the recent increased availability and decreased prices. The big crypto firms have actual overhead to worry about. Rent, salaries, wages, and other costs of doing business that won't affect the home miner. Home miners can keep plugging away, they don't have to worry about selling off current profits to cover recurring expenses. But the big shops need to factor those in, so they're looking to scale back now before things crash.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
The prices of video cards and BTC are basically the opposite for 2018, 2019, and most of 2020. Also worth mentioning, the previous mining boom in 2018 was a down year for bitcoin.

The only time they matched each other was at the start of 2021. So no, there was no trend. Which also explains why nobody was warning of an upcoming crypto mining boom in the 2nd half of 2020.
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I think ETH is what all the miners are focusing on now.
 
I think the issue is a combination of scalpers and miners. A miner doesn't mind spending more then a gamer on a video card because its an investment that earns ROI. Scalpers also dont mind knowing they can exploit the shortage. Ive had people buy stuff from me that flat out told me they were just going to resell it for more and thats all they did for a living. I currently have 9 video cards and i would like to get up to 12 6600xts in a single rig for long term mining. If i had cheaper power or solar panels, id grow to as many cards that would fit at my residence. I find mining more enjoyable then gaming.
 
DooKey said:
Crypto, free govmint cheese, tariffs, and covid shutdowns have all contributed to the current issues with GPU prices.
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The 20 series being a massive failure has a lot to do with it, too. You had an entire generation backlog of GPU purchasers waiting for the 30 series to come out.
Sept 16th, 2020: Everything's fine.
Sept 17th, 2020: Total chaos.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
The 20 series being a massive failure has a lot to do with it, too. You had an entire generation backlog of GPU purchasers waiting for the 30 series to come out.
Sept 16th, 2020: Everything's fine.
Sept 17th, 2020: Total chaos.
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This was something I had forgotten about. So many people skipped that gen waiting for the 3k series.
 
kirbyrj said:
I've said for a while that if you put a mild amount of effort in, there's no reason why you wouldn't have a card at this point. People just like complaining I guess.

That being said, nobody likes paying exorbitant extra costs. I haven't tried to hit a BB drop in months since I have a card.
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The only option anyone who doesn't have the time to farm a bunch of different sites has had is the Newegg Shuffle. The EVGA queue is a joke. I signed up within a week for every single queue for all the high-end 3x00 cards and have never gotten a queue email.

I did finally win a newegg shuffle, it is possible, but the problem is that the prices on these cards outside of the EVGA models are also sky high. I ended up taking it up the pooper and getting a PNY 3080ti through the shuffle for $1800 which was MSRP.
 
Mchart said:
The only option anyone who doesn't have the time to farm a bunch of different sites has had is the Newegg Shuffle. The EVGA queue is a joke. I signed up within a week for every single queue for all the high-end 3x00 cards and have never gotten a queue email.

I did finally win a newegg shuffle, it is possible, but the problem is that the prices on these cards outside of the EVGA models are also sky high. I ended up taking it up the pooper and getting a PNY 3080ti through the shuffle for $1800 which was MSRP.
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A week is too long. You had to hit it in the first hour or two.
 
kirbyrj said:
A week is too long. You had to hit it in the first hour or two.
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Right, so saying an average person could get one through that, as an example, doesn't make sense. The average person couldn't/can't. I'm not sitting around at the edge of my seat making sure to spam the EVGA site within 24 hours of release. Nor do I have the time to carefully pay attention to when a new GPU line is releasing the day of. The only time I attempted to sign up for the EVGA queue within 24 hours of release for the 3080ti, I couldn't even get through to their website it was completely DDOSed.

The only way I can see that any average person has any small chance of getting these new GPU's is through the newegg shuffle since you can actually enter into it. Everything else is picked up by people running bots. And no, an average person shouldn't have to run a fucking bot to get a card.

Even back in the 2080ti days when that card was hot at initial release I was able to pick one up by just visiting the typical websites once a day. Eventually I got one. That's impossible now. I've got a demanding job, a house, and all sorts of other shit going on. I don't have the time to sit around 24/7 and make my temporary full time job that of getting a video card.

My only other option would be a Microcenter two hours away, which isn't feasible since every time i've gone in the past two years there is a permanent encampment of welfare earners outside the store that instantly purchase any inventory as soon as the store opens every day. I'm somewhat confused as to why Microcenter doesn't do a queue for cards, but ultimately, they don't give a shit. They've got the encampment moving their inventory instantly every morning.

Sad part is we can't even rely on organized crime to do a decent black market operation. Back in the day they'd beat the shit out of these scalpers and sell stolen product to locals. These days the scalpers are just part of their operation and they're raking in the money hand-over-fist on Amazon market.
 
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I bought an Evga GTX 980Ti Classified locally for $200. I sold my GTX 1080 FE a month ago for $450 due to needing the money. I don’t game much besides playing CoD Cold War . Just got Vanguard but I can’t seem to fix the stupid Vivacious error.
 
DooKey said:
Crypto, free govmint cheese, tariffs, and covid shutdowns have all contributed to the current issues with GPU prices.
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Don't forget rampant printing of money (inflation).

We're in for a lot more hurt than just GPU prices. Is anyone getting raises to compensate for this inflation? I certainly intend to negotiate one, but my guess is the vast majority will answer that with a no.

Varmint said:
I think Lakados mentioned in another thread that Trump’s 25% tariff started on video cards made in China Jan 1 2021, so that’s a good part of the premium over MSRP right there. Are there any cards not made in China?
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I believe only EVGA which is why their prices are lower than everyone else. Their cards are made in Taiwan so no 25% tariff.
 
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So why did I pay 25% above the MSRP when I got an EVGA card off their waitlist?
 
philb2 said:
So why did I pay 25% above the MSRP when I got an EVGA card off their waitlist?
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See: other factors (inflation, scalping, etc.). That said look at any of their cards compared to an MSI or Zotac. EVGA is cheaper.

I am literally only talking about the tariff stuff in my posts above.
 
Just curious. What should I be paying for an EVGA 3070ti? I have an EVGA 1070ti, but would like an upgrade. I know I'm going to get ripped off, but I don 't see prices coming back to msrp in the next year or two. Even that might be wishful thinking. I haven't really looked anywhere else other than eBay. Is there a certain one I should look for or just snag whichever one I can buy? I would be selling the 1070ti to help offset some of the expense.
 
Smashed Ixnay said:
Just curious. What should I be paying for an EVGA 3070ti? I have an EVGA 1070ti, but would like an upgrade. I know I'm going to get ripped off, but I don 't see prices coming back to msrp in the next year or two. Even that might be wishful thinking. I haven't really looked anywhere else other than eBay. Is there a certain one I should look for or just snag whichever one I can buy? I would be selling the 1070ti to help offset some of the expense.
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Reality is that the pricing is going to be up to you. The thing you want to consider more is if you are actually purchasing the card through a legit method like Ship/Sold by Amazon, etc. That may be worth bending over and taking it up the pooper and paying the inflated MSRP if you can even find a card. I say this because unless you're getting an EVGA card, most of the card manufacturers no longer honor warranty if you aren't the original purchaser of the card, and if the card wasn't purchased through an official retailer like Amazon, Newegg, etc.

So if you can even find one not being sold by a shitty scalper/re-seller operation on Newegg/Amazon, i'd just buy it if you need one. Just know the odds of finding an EVGA card since they have the lowest MSRP, is going to be near impossible if you aren't running a bot operation, etc. They are the biggest target for scalper operations since the mark-up is larger. The other manufacturers have largely made their MSRP's near scalping prices anyways, so they take longer to sell out.
 
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Mchart said:
The EVGA queue is a joke. I signed up within a week for every single queue for all the high-end 3x00 cards and have never gotten a queue email.
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kirbyrj said:
A week is too long. You had to hit it in the first hour or two.
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This was not my experience. I entered the queue for a 08G-P5-3767-KR (EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING) on 11/28/2020, and I was notified (and subsequently purchased) my card on 6/18/2021. I don't know exactly what date the queue for this card started, but I'm pretty sure it was at the end of October of that year (10/28/20 according to this site).
 
Jonnycat99 said:
This was not my experience. I entered the queue for a 08G-P5-3767-KR (EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING) on 11/28/2020, and I was notified (and subsequently purchased) my card on 6/18/2021. I don't know exactly what date the queue for this card started, but I'm pretty sure it was at the end of October of that year (10/28/20 according to this site).
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EVGA has moved the goal posts on their queues so many times-----I think they have probably accidentally dropped several people from the spot they originally had. But who knows.

I signed up for a 3070 ti within about 40 minutes of the elite queue opening. That was in June or something. And I've never gotten a notification. And they stopped doing it by the minute you signed up, awhile ago. Its now based on elite status points level, etc.
 
Jonnycat99 said:
This was not my experience. I entered the queue for a 08G-P5-3767-KR (EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING) on 11/28/2020, and I was notified (and subsequently purchased) my card on 6/18/2021. I don't know exactly what date the queue for this card started, but I'm pretty sure it was at the end of October of that year (10/28/20 according to this site).
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I've got two notifies from late October 2020 and have received nothing. The website still says it hasn't sent anything. Seems useless to me. Doesn't help you can only have two active, so i've got about 10 in there, but only the original two are marked as 'active'.

IMO, the system is broke, because I haven't gotten shit and i've been waiting now for more than a year. Me being a long-time EVGA customer with 50+ items registered apparently didn't mean shit either.
 
chameleoneel said:
EVGA has moved the goal posts on their queues so many times-----I think they have probably accidentally dropped several people from the spot they originally had. But who knows.

I signed up for a 3070 ti within about 40 minutes of the elite queue opening. That was in June or something. And I've never gotten a notification. And they stopped doing it by the minute you signed up, awhile ago. Its now based on elite status points level, etc.
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Which 3070 ti?
 
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This is my que list. You can see which ones I got notify's for.

Removed by user was when they forced you to only keep two.
 
havoc lingers said:
That we really don't know since it should be changed after next Intel and Nvidia lineup launch.
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Every time someone says "prices are never going back to normal" all I think is, where were they in August 2020 warning about a massive GPU shortage? Or December 2020 warning about a crypto boom?
Not a lot of psychics in the PC community, nobody sees anything coming until after it's happened.

The only doomsayer I recall from back then was MLID and he was claiming the shortage was artifically created by Nvidia to drive up demand.
 
thecold said:
Removed by user was when they forced you to only keep two.
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I didn't know they were doing that; I guess was fortunate enough to be able to shotgun my way to a card. I can see that they want to keep scalpers from scooping up quantities of cards, but I think most of us do this just so we can end up with _one_ card out of the series.
 
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