The purpose of this article is to discuss the current state of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and their prices. A popular news theme on Reddit emerged today. Articles appeared discussing the news that graphics cards are plummeting below MSRP and are now back in stock. Graphics cards had reached all-time highs over the past couple years. This was due to the cryptocurrency craze and the supply chain issues that have plagued the global economy. Not to mention, extremely high demand from gamers.
The supposed drop in graphics card prices and rise in inventory levels met sharp criticism from Redditors and others online. Redditor u/earsofdoom said “I literally see “graphics cards under MSRP” posted every [expletive] day on here but have yet to see a card for under MSRP.” Several others have made similar comments and the problem seems to still be pervasive not just in the U.S. but across the world. A person from Germany commented that he only had seen one in the past month. Another had expressed concern that fraudulent graphics cards were being sold by a shady company.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
There is some indication however that graphics cards are actually indeed dropping down in prices. It may be soon that they return below MSRP and stock becomes available. According to Tom’s Hardware, GPU prices fell 15% in May (Retail). This is likely due to several factors. One such factor is that the price of cryptocurrency has crashed dramatically. This makes it less attractive for miners to buy up GPU inventory. Another factor is that the market is catching up and demand is falling. Many gamers could not wait for prices to drop and paid a premium. Or, they settled for less.
Additionally, the RTX 40-series and RX 7000-series are set to launch this year. It is uncertain what inventory will look like at that time for those models. But the NVIDIA GeForce 3000 series and AMD Radeon RX 6000 may have inventory leftover that will need to sell. That could make pricing for those models more attractive in the coming months.