The newest scoop on GPU costs paints a fairly grim image. It seems that the common costs of graphics playing cards have doubled between 2020 and 2023, and so they present no indicators of stopping.
All of us knew that GPUs are on the costly aspect, however did anybody actually anticipate that the costs had skyrocketed a lot? Extra importantly, when will it finish?
A uncommon glimpse on the numbers
If you wish to personal top-of-the-line graphics playing cards from the newest era or two, you must be ready to pay a fairly penny. Whereas there are nonetheless loads of RTX 30-series and RDNA 2 playing cards in inventory, their costs are pretty regular. In the meantime, the present era is dear throughout the board and never dropping in worth to date. The one exception could possibly be Nvidia’s RTX 4080, which could obtain a worth minimize resulting from disappointing gross sales.
Though it’s very clear that GPU costs rose throughout the previous few years, it’s uncommon that we get precise numbers to help that hunch. This time, gross sales figures from German retailer Mindfactory inform us the entire story — and the information will not be good in any respect.
In February 2020, the common sale worth (ASP) for an AMD graphics card was 295 euros (round $314), and AMD’s complete income was 442,870 euros ($471,997). In the meantime, Nvidia’s ASP was at 426 euros ($454), with complete income of 855,305 euros ($911,558).
Quick-forward to February 2023, and the worth will increase are mind-boggling. The common sale worth for an AMD card went as much as 600 euros ($639), marking a 103% enhance, whereas the income rose to 1,026,046 euros, which is over one million {dollars} ($1,093,508) and a 130% enhance from 2020.
Nvidia’s outcomes are much more spectacular, though the positive aspects are smaller. The ASP is now at 825 euros ($879), and the income is 1,844,323 euros, that means almost $2 million {dollars} ($1,965,550). These numbers translate to a 93% and 115% development when in comparison with 2020, respectively.
Thoughts you, these numbers make up only a small portion of the graphics card market. They have been additionally posted on Reddit, however the knowledge seems to have been sourced from Mindfactory itself. It’s not the primary time we’re getting knowledge from this German retailer, and people numbers are often our solely look into the state of the market as a result of most retailers don’t share their gross sales figures.
The GPU scarcity is over, however costs aren’t dropping
So much has occurred between the start of 2020 and now, and there are various explanation why GPUs noticed a rise in worth. The pandemic brought about many points with the provision chain, and there was additionally a worldwide chip scarcity. Cryptocurrencies have been booming for a good portion of that timeframe, and in consequence, GPUs have been purchased for mining functions.
Nowadays, most individuals have given up on crypto mining, and there are many GPUs in inventory at any given time. Solely the RTX 4090 and the RX 7900 XTX proceed to promote out pretty rapidly if they seem at MSRP. Nonetheless, you possibly can at all times purchase a pricier mannequin from most retailers.
You’d assume that, given the circumstances, GPU costs would start to normalize, however that doesn’t appear to be the case. You not must pay a fortune to scalpers, however you’ll nonetheless spend loads of cash simply procuring at common retailers.
Provided that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes that decrease chip costs are a “story of the previous,” it appears unlikely that we are going to ever return to prepandemic GPU costs. This is perhaps the brand new regular and we’d simply must get used to having to paying properly over $1,000 for a midtier to high-end graphics card.
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