Question are video card prices headed down yet?

[DrMrLordX]

saving money is a fool's game at the moment anyway

It isn't if many of your best available investment options are running on QE money and due for a collapse. Maybe you'd be better off with metals temporarily, but they've been stagnant too. At least we're returning to sanity where a video card is NOT a long-term investment, and can return to normal depreciation cycles.

 

[Aapje]

Video cards are never a long term investment. At most a speculative short-term investment early in the life cycle or when the market goes weird.

For miners these cards are not a long-term investment, but a capital good that depreciates over time (at least, if they are rational).

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

The Radeon 6400 looks good for low profile builds - about 3X the performance of the RX 550, but about the same amount of power draw. (I'm limited to 50-55 Watts in my current system)

 

[Aapje]

Only as long as you run it on PCIe 4 and you ignore the very inflated price.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Not much choice if you want to upgrade from a 50 Watt RX 550 and you are limited to low profile and about 50 Watts of power use.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Not much choice if you want to upgrade from a 50 Watt RX 550 and you are limited to low profile and about 50 Watts of power use.

ETAPrime nailed it with his reviews of the 6400. Note that it did fine with a PCIe 3.0 OEM system, featuring the fairly weak Ryzen 3 4300. Heck, his total cost was under $400 for the whole build, including the 6400. Add $50 for the ram that I think he swapped in. Crazy good value for playing Elden Ring 1080p low, Witcher III high, God of War original settings.

I agree it is a bad buy for low budget gaming builds in general though. But for slot powered low profile builds like yours', it is hands down the bang for buck king at the moment. LP 1650s are stupid overpriced, and will not be entering the chat.

 

[biostud]

A €899 RTX 3080 from Germany was tempting me today

 

[GodisanAtheist]

A €899 RTX 3080 from Germany was tempting me today

- Resist the temptation to buy at "MSRP" when cards should be getting discounted at this point in the product cycle. The 6900XT was available on AMD.com yesterday and I momentarily felt a pang of "$999 is a great price for that card, that's like 50% off what I would have paid a few months ago, I should go buy it" before I came back to my senses and realized that its actually a terrible price for that card in 2022 at any point in time.

 

[Aapje]

ETAPrime nailed it with his reviews of the 6400. Note that it did fine with a PCIe 3.0 OEM system, featuring the fairly weak Ryzen 3 4300.

Hardware Unboxed found a significant penalty for PCIe 3:

I agree that it is the best of all the bad options, but that doesn't make it good.

A €899 RTX 3080 from Germany was tempting me today

There was a shortened 3080 on sale for €850 in The Netherlands for a while today (now €100 more).

 

[biostud]

- Resist the temptation to buy at "MSRP" when cards should be getting discounted at this point in the product cycle. The 6900XT was available on AMD.com yesterday and I momentarily felt a pang of "$999 is a great price for that card, that's like 50% off what I would have paid a few months ago, I should go buy it" before I came back to my senses and realized that its actually a terrible price for that card in 2022 at any point in time.

I know, but it still tempted me

 

[maddie]

Hardware Unboxed found a significant penalty for PCIe 3:

I agree that it is the best of all the bad options, but that doesn't make it good.



There was a shortened 3080 on sale for €850 in The Netherlands for a while today (now €100 more).

"I agree that it is the best of all the bad options, but that doesn't make it good."

What a statement!

That's what living in the real world means. Hardware Unboxed and many others have great difficulty understanding this truth.

 

[Aapje]

That's what living in the real world means. Hardware Unboxed and many others have great difficulty understanding this truth.

They seem to be perfectly correct in that this card doesn't make much sense compared to buying second-hand, unless you need the low form factor. And then it is not a very good value if you look at the historic prices.

This is quite important information if you want to figure out whether this card makes sense for your use case.

ETA Prime only tested this card for emulating old games, which is much more of a niche than the games that Hardware Unboxed tested.

Yet you are upset with Hardware Unboxed for not 'living in the real world.' It's frankly a little ridiculous.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It fills a niche, that previously, only the GT 1030 did, but with 4GB of VRAM and performance similar to a GTX 1650 4GB D6, and HWUB has the gall to call it "not a good solution". When it's basically the ONLY solution. (*)

Let's not kid ourselves, no-one is simply picking up a 6400 *for a standard desktop PC capable of utilizing full-height, double-width cards*. They're buying it for niche / LP / SFF / HTPC builds.

(*) I actually think that HWUB's beef with this card is primarily around the price-point. Sure, $90-100 would be easier to stomach. But when the nearest alternative is a $330 LP GTX 1650, not sure that the complaint of pricing has much merit, either.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

ETA Prime only tested this card for emulating old games, which is much more of a niche than the games that Hardware Unboxed tested.

LOL. Come on Maaan! You have to pay better attention than that.

And historic pricing means nothing. There is only what GPUs sell for, as the last 2 mining booms, combined with a human malware outbreak, have so aptly demonstrated. Fantasy Land MSRP/RRP doesn't make for a strong argument. It is irrelevant what a LP 1650 should cost, it costs twice that right now, and has for almost 2yrs. For slot powered, Low profile builds, the 6400 is the hands down best choice at the moment. For sure, it is a niche, but a very real one none-the-less.

 

[Aapje]

And historic pricing means nothing. There is only what GPUs sell for

Historic pricing is very relevant if you want to judge the impact of temporary problems and thus the expected improvement if those problems go away or reduce. For example, the people who correctly attributed most of the increase to mining, rather than listened to the lies by Nvidia and such, correctly predicted that the prices would go down a lot once mining became less profitable.

It's also relevant, as well as price/performance for various purchasing decisions, like whether to postpone or accelerate upgrades and whether to buy more expensive cards with the goal of using it for a longer period or getting a stop gap card.

For slot powered, Low profile builds, the 6400 is the hands down best choice at the moment.

But then there are still options, like postponing that upgrade and saving some money for a more significant upgrade a bit later, when the prices are most likely better and you might replace more of that machine at the time. Depending on the use case, you might then want to get a little bigger case that allows for much better options.

Of course, that depends on what you want. But I'm not particularly impressed by the level of improvement you'd get by upgrading an existing PCIe 3 system with this card.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

We seem to have no common ground here. You call 2yrs temporary. Do you know how many systems some of us build and/or upgrade and/or repair, in that time? And WAIT is the advice that is like a forum bot response. The advice is always to wait, always. Doesn't matter when someone asks, it always the answer... wait. Opportunity cost never sems to enter the chat. But it should. Months, or in this case years, of gaming on the new shiny, are lost. While they slog on with their old, tired, hardware. Time is your only real currency, spend it wisely. That's my hot take. Which I am poignantly aware, is diametrically opposed to the Ferengi math so many parrot.

 

[StinkyPinky]

6900xt is still in stock, there is definitely more supply these days. Newegg is selling 6800xt's for 800-something also

 

[DrMrLordX]

Video cards are never a long term investment.

I paid $700 + tax on my Radeon VII on launch day. Late last year its value crossed $2k on the used market. I never once mined with it. That's over 200% appreciation! Under normal market cycles it should have been at most a $500 card due to scarcity.

 

[Furious_Styles]

I paid $700 + tax on my Radeon VII on launch day. Late last year its value cross $2k on the used market. I never once mined with it. That's over 200% appreciation! Under normal market cycles it should have been at most a $500 card due to scarcity.

I'm sure you know this rare time we're in with mining crazes. The vast majority of times once a new release comes out old cards would drop considerably in price.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm sure you know this rare time we're in with mining crazes. The vast majority of times once a new release comes out old cards would drop considerably in price.

Yes. Hence my original comment:

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It was indeed an odd time.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'm sure you know this rare time we're in with mining crazes. The vast majority of times once a new release comes out old cards would drop considerably in price.

No, just no. That includes pre-mining. That makes no sense. When something as significant as mining happens to a hardware market. You can't just wish it away to the cornfield, and try to add it to the old math. It becomes the new math. Since mining became a thing, it has dominated the pricing structure. That is; It has played a factored in pricing for more time than it did not. Discuss.

 

[Aapje]

Do you know how many systems some of us build and/or upgrade and/or repair, in that time?

Yet in the Steam hardware survey, there are three 10x0 cards that have higher market share than the first 30x0 card. Fact is that gamers on average have quite a long time between upgrades, so there is plenty of room for many to push those upgrades back or pull them forward.

Especially if people have limited money, it also becomes a choice between saving longer for a full upgrade vs doing a partial upgrade. When the market prices are high, a full upgrade at a later date when the market will probably revert to a better situation becomes more attractive, while good market conditions make a partial upgrade more attractive.

Of course, if people really value that short term upgrade highly, they should do so anyway, even if it is relatively poor value.

You call 2yrs temporary.

There was actually a moment where your advice of buying a card right away no matter what could have meant buying an Nvidia card at 250% of MSRP, where one or two months later, that price was 150% of MSRP, so people would have overspend the entire value of a card in a normal market by taking that advice.

And I never actually said to wait two years...

And WAIT is the advice that is like a forum bot response.

Good thing that wasn't my response, since I actually argued that it is an option that people should consider, but that it depends on the situation.

You are making the common mistake of inverting your own opinion and then arguing against that, instead of actually reading what I write.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Of course, if people really value that short term upgrade highly, they should do so anyway, even if it is relatively poor value.

I think that what you're missing, in the bigger picture here, that @DAPUNISHER is trying to point out, is the missed opportunity costs, PARTICULARY in the multi-player PC gaming market; when a new multi-player "shared experience" launches, you want to be ready and able to join your buddies, not waiting on the sidelines for cards to drop to "mythical MSRP".

And while your statements about waiting for the price of NV cards to come down, that was with the benefit of hindsight. It wasn't "certain" at that time. Both crypto and supply-chain are still both factors in-play, and could easily "spook" retailer pricing.

 

[Aapje]

I paid $700 + tax on my Radeon VII on launch day. Late last year its value crossed $2k on the used market. I never once mined with it. That's over 200% appreciation! Under normal market cycles it should have been at most a $500 card due to scarcity.

In the long term its value is just going to go down. It's never going to keep or increase its value like some paintings, some cars, bars of gold, stock, etc. If you keep your card, then in 15 years it will be mostly worthless and what gives the card it's value now is the use you can get out of it until then.

Again, objects whose value goes up at most temporarily, are only good for short term investments/speculating, not for long term investments.

You can compare this to the current increase of 2nd hand car prices due to low production. This has made people who want to have a car for transport willing to spend more for an older car, but the value is still merely derived from its practical use. As soon as car manufacturing goes up, those 2nd hand prices will drop. This is different to collector cars like a Ferrari 250 GTO, which people just want to own for its beauty and the like & don't use for transport.

 

[Aapje]

I think that what you're missing, in the bigger picture here, that @DAPUNISHER is trying to point out, is the missed opportunity costs, PARTICULARY in the multi-player PC gaming market; when a new multi-player "shared experience" launches, you want to be ready and able to join your buddies, not waiting on the sidelines for cards to drop to "mythical MSRP".

Again, that's why I said that it depends on the use case.

You and him both pick a specific use case and then argue that everyone should act as if they have this use case, even though many people do not. The entire argument for opportunity costs can go both ways, since it is equally possible to get a mediocre upgrade and get fairly little benefit in the short term, but then to have to save much longer for an upgrade that gives a way better bang for the buck. It may be worth it for the other person if going from RX 550 performance to less than RX 570 performance is a large enough benefit to them, but whether that's true is something only they can answer.

And while your statements about waiting for the price of NV cards to come down, that was with the benefit of hindsight. It wasn't "certain" at that time. Both crypto and supply-chain are still both factors in-play, and could easily "spook" retailer pricing.

It wasn't certain, but it was very likely. And the many people who waited that huge spike out were right. Temporary market disruption by definition causes temporary impacts, although 'temporary' can still be a pretty long time. But you can estimate the expected value of waiting, based on reasonable assumptions. Furthermore, you can try to find sweet spots in the market where the negative impacts are the lowest.

And the crypto market is very unlikely to strongly increase demand again, even if Ethereum announces tomorrow to abandon Proof of Stake, as there are already very many cards in minings rigs, which depresses profitability of mining, so the price of ETH has to go up a lot to make mining as profitable as during the boom. The crypto market has a much great chance of causing a price crash when Proof of Stake happens.