Question are video card prices headed down yet?

[moonbogg]

You are dreaming. TSMC 4nm EUV cost one arm one leg and one kidney

Will the average gamer care why a 4060 costs $600? Nope. They just won't buy one. Problem solved?

 

[xpea]

Will the average gamer care why a 4060 costs $600? Nope. They just won't buy one. Problem solved?

I wish that you were right and I would love to see prices going down. However, the truth is that Nvidia and AMD financial reports says the total opposite as more people is willing to pay a premium for GPUs

 

[Aapje]

Those record profits are due restricted production and due to miners. Production is going to go up, as Nvidia and AMD keep saying. And profits for miners have been going down and will go down further. The manufacturers are also clearly acting like miners are a bad market to cater to for the long term, like with the LHR cards.

As I said before, high prices are normal if demand outstrips supply and this is not an indication that if the market normalizes, those high prices will remain.

Now, I do expect higher prices due to extra manufacturing costs, especially on the Nvidia side (due to the 4nm), but I don't see these high prices as sustainable.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I hope proof of stake actually happens. Watching the entire 3000 series generation flood the second hand market all at once would be hilarious. During the height of the GPU tsunami, I predict 3080's around $300 and anything below will be about as valuable as a door stop.

I'll help them get rid of a couple of those door stops. 3060/70(TI) for under $300? Just sign me right up.

 

[igor_kavinski]

A major shift like 3X better raytracing performance/more AAA raytracing titles/more indie titles dabbling in raytracing and more classics getting raytracing support would make even the current generation a lot less attractive when the new generation launches. Buying a new graphics card now even at MSRP may turn out to be a bad idea.

 

[jpiniero]

Hmm.. Amazon's got a 3070 Ti for $699. It's a preorder since it claims it wouldn't ship until the end of the month but it's been available for several hours.

 

[uclaLabrat]

I think ive been sufficiently conditioned by the price shifts the last 2 years to almkst want to jump at cards like 3080 or 6800xt at <$1k but yeah. Holding out for next gen. My 5700xt is managing 90-100 fps on low/med for hunt showdown at 1440p so i can wait a bit.

 

[jpiniero]

I think ive been sufficiently conditioned by the price shifts the last 2 years to almkst want to jump at cards like 3080 or 6800xt at <$1k but yeah. Holding out for next gen. My 5700xt is managing 90-100 fps on low/med for hunt showdown at 1440p so i can wait a bit.

I think it's unlikely that the mid/low gets much of a perf/$ increase compared to Ampere MSRP. Only the high end+.

 

[moonbogg]

I think it's unlikely that the mid/low gets much of a perf/$ increase compared to Ampere MSRP. Only the high end+.

That sounds likely to me. High-end buyers are all over the place on forums and youtube losing their minds over a $700 8GB card that should be $350, so I think the market is perma-screwed for anything more than cheap mid range performing cards. The high-end gamers have really shown they will pay just about anything, so it is what it is. I think I can say I'm definitely no longer a high-end gamer or GPU buyer. Nvidia turned 80-class buyers into Titan buyers and even well beyond. I choose to not go there. Not worth it for more framerate.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That sounds likely to me. High-end buyers are all over the place on forums and youtube losing their minds over a $700 8GB card that should be $350, so I think the market is perma-screwed for anything more than cheap mid range performing cards. The high-end gamers have really shown they will pay just about anything, so it is what it is. I think I can say I'm definitely no longer a high-end gamer or GPU buyer. Nvidia turned 80-class buyers into Titan buyers and even well beyond. I choose to not go there. Not worth it for more framerate.

Much as it pains me, I'm with you on that. Most of the games I play are either old, or run just fine on mid range cards. Even though I can afford it, I'm not paying $1000+ for a graphics card.

That 6600XT I managed to get at launch @ MSRP was quite enough. Worse, it actually turned out to be a good investment. I can sell it for more then what I paid for it. That's just weird.

 

[biostud]

Much as it pains me, I'm with you on that. Most of the games I play are either old, or run just fine on mid range cards. Even though I can afford it, I'm not paying $1000+ for a graphics card.

That 6600XT I managed to get at launch @ MSRP was quite enough. Worse, it actually turned out to be a good investment. I can sell it for more then what I paid for it. That's just weird.

Same, here although I try to look for a card where price/performance is best. On my old monitor I used to go for xx70 range cards as it was a 1440p, but with my G9 I need to go up in a higher price range. I don't usually play the newest games, so I think I will stay in the 7800XT or 4080 range, if the price/performance ratio is not too far of the lower tier models. And if they are, a 7700XT or 4070 will still be a major upgrade to my GTX 1070

 

[ultimatebob]

That sounds likely to me. High-end buyers are all over the place on forums and youtube losing their minds over a $700 8GB card that should be $350, so I think the market is perma-screwed for anything more than cheap mid range performing cards. The high-end gamers have really shown they will pay just about anything, so it is what it is. I think I can say I'm definitely no longer a high-end gamer or GPU buyer. Nvidia turned 80-class buyers into Titan buyers and even well beyond. I choose to not go there. Not worth it for more framerate.

Yeah... I noticed that even used 3070 8 GB cards are still selling for $700 on eBay. That's nuts.

My 2060 Super kinda struggles a bit on the latest games at 1440p, but there is no way in hell that I'm paying that much for a minor upgrade.

 

[uclaLabrat]

That sounds likely to me. High-end buyers are all over the place on forums and youtube losing their minds over a $700 8GB card that should be $350, so I think the market is perma-screwed for anything more than cheap mid range performing cards. The high-end gamers have really shown they will pay just about anything, so it is what it is. I think I can say I'm definitely no longer a high-end gamer or GPU buyer. Nvidia turned 80-class buyers into Titan buyers and even well beyond. I choose to not go there. Not worth it for more framerate.

Completely agree, and im getting really, really tired of the piles of tech articles coming out right now from the click-factories breathlessly claiming that cards are in stock at MSRP!*!11 and have been for DAYS and its all the new TI versions that came out in the last 6 months with...grossly inflated MSRPs.

 

[dlerious]

Not sure I would say PC games from before 1995 were so much more fun than games that we have now. Some were very fun. But the majority of games that people look back on are either with nostalgia glasses, or were games that actually used hardware acceleration.

The Voodoo 1 graphics card came out in '95, and it changed gaming as a whole. There were 3d accelerators before it, but it was the first mass market card.
If you look at any of the Quake games, Diablo 2, etc, they were all best played with an accelerator card.

I don't remember everything from way back, but I played a lot of Sierra games and loved the D&D games back in the 80's (Wizardry, Ultima, Gold Box games). Earliest graphics card I can remember was an ATi Mach32. Just bought the 11 game Gold Box collection on steam. Haven't had a chance to play yet.

 

[dlerious]

I hope proof of stake actually happens. Watching the entire 3000 series generation flood the second hand market all at once would be hilarious. During the height of the GPU tsunami, I predict 3080's around $300 and anything below will be about as valuable as a door stop. I hope every gamer buys a used card for super cheap and calls it good enough so Nvidia sees almost no sales for the overpriced 4000 series.
If I had the power to allow or deny sales of 4000 series cards, I'd force the following prices or I'd deny the entire generation market access.

RTX 4060 - $250
RTX 4070 - $350
RXT 4080 - $500
RXT 4080Ti - $650
RTX 4090 - $800
RXT 4090Ti - $1000

That sounds pretty close to 10-series pricing with Titan at $1200 instead of xx90's. I'd love those prices.

 

[ultimatebob]

Completely agree, and im getting really, really tired of the piles of tech articles coming out right now from the click-factories breathlessly claiming that cards are in stock at MSRP!*!11 and have been for DAYS and its all the new TI versions that came out in the last 6 months with...grossly inflated MSRPs.

Yeah... Cards like the GeForce 3070 had an original MSRP of $499.

You can buy one now for the "new" MSRP of $729, months before it's due to be replaced. What a bargain!

 

[igor_kavinski]

With rare earth minerals/metals in short supply, how long before Nvidia/AMD/AIBs start dismantling/destroying their unsold inventory to get the rare earths back to build the newer gen cards? What about things getting so bad that they have to buy the cards off of the market when mining goes to crap and the market is flooded with cheap cards?

 

[Stuka87]

With rare earth minerals/metals in short supply, how long before Nvidia/AMD/AIBs start dismantling/destroying their unsold inventory to get the rare earths back to build the newer gen cards? What about things getting so bad that they have to buy the cards off of the market when mining goes to crap and the market is flooded with cheap cards?

No way they would even consider this. Partly because there is zero unsold inventory.

But recycling old electronics really needs to be come a thing.

 

[psolord]

With rare earth minerals/metals in short supply, how long before Nvidia/AMD/AIBs start dismantling/destroying their unsold inventory to get the rare earths back to build the newer gen cards? What about things getting so bad that they have to buy the cards off of the market when mining goes to crap and the market is flooded with cheap cards?

Well if they need raw materials, I will gladly exchange my 5850 for a 4090ti! xD

Seriously, why aren't they giving us the option to recycle old hardware for a fee of course?

 

[SMOGZINN]

With rare earth minerals/metals in short supply, how long before Nvidia/AMD/AIBs start dismantling/destroying their unsold inventory to get the rare earths back to build the newer gen cards? What about things getting so bad that they have to buy the cards off of the market when mining goes to crap and the market is flooded with cheap cards?

A while yet, since we are not really technologically capable of doing it on large scale. They might be able to reuse chips, but breaking down components to get the raw materials out of them, at least the rare earth elements, we simply can't do on scale. It currently costs hundreds of dollars a gram and hour of work to recycle small amounts of rare earth elements. It is considerably easier and cheaper to extract them out of the sea bed and sea water and we have not yet implemented that on a large scale yet, but that is the next step.

 

[lakedude]

Like many of you I'm waiting for cards to be more reasonably priced, however I'm not so disappointed or dismal about the situation.

Competition exists again in the CPU market so some of the best consumer chips the world has ever seen are now selling at a discount. The $300 MSRP 5600x is now selling for closer to $200. Combined with a $699 3070 ti selling for $100 over MSRP your total system cost is balanced back to basically MSRP, which is reasonable.

 

[Aapje]

Good news on the Ethereum front. They are now testing The Merge on a copy of the main Ethereum network, so one with a lot of existing crap in it. It seems to be working well so far. So another hurdle taken. No apparent reason to delay the real Merge.

Why this matters so much can be seen here:


So Ethereum produces 96% of the mining rewards, at $41 million a day. This will drop to zero after the Merge. Many miners will then switch to other coins, which will flood those small markets with coins and drive up the difficulty (so it takes more effort to mine a coin), both driving down the returns really fast.

I see a lot of denial among miners, which may actually be good for those of us holding out, because a mass dumping of cards in a small period has a better chance of creating a panic spiral, where lowering prices causes more panic selling, which drives down prices, which causes more panic selling, etc.

 

[RnR_au]

There is another test on the 22nd.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512107657703919625

But the merge won't happen in June. Maybe July.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1513610106721603587

 

[moonbogg]

I think the stupid merge is turning into the Duke Nukem Forever of the derpcoin world. Never going to happen.

 

[ultimatebob]

There is another test on the 22nd.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512107657703919625

But the merge won't happen in June. Maybe July.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1513610106721603587

I guess that the Ethereum devs need another month to build up their staking horde and unload the parts from their mining rigs