GPU Price Tracking Shows Graphics Cards Are Finally Getting Cheaper
It's been a depressing year for gamers looking to build a new gaming PC or wanting to upgrade an existing one with a swank GPU. Graphics cards have been hard to find and way overpriced. There's a glimmer of hope for would-be buyers, though. The latest GPU price tracking data shows that graphics cards are finally getting cheaper.
That's great news when, just three months ago, prices were trending towards record highs for both NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 series and AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series. At the time, tracking data showed NVIDIA's GPUs commanding prices around 188 percent above MSRP, and AMD's GPUs fetching 201 percent over MSRP. And now? Have a look...
Source: 3DCenter.org
The folks at 3DCenter have been tracking and graphing price trends for the latest generation graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA across retailers in Germany and Austria. Obviously this is not an all-inclusive snapshot of the overall landscape, but by examining the same sources over time, it's interesting to see how prices have fluctuated.
Pricing peaked in May of last year when NVIDIA's GPUs were selling for around 218 percent above MSRP, and AMD's GPU were going for 116 percent above MSRP. Following a precipitous drop, prices started to creep back up, and have now begun to go down again. Looking at the chart, NVIDIA's GPUs are selling for 57 percent above MSRP and AMD's GPUs are fetching a 45 percent premium.
Recent GPU launches like the Radeon RX 6500 XT and GeForce RTX 3050 have skewed the average selling price in a downward direction. However, prices were already back on a downward swing, leading to optimism that there is more to the trend just new card launches.
If you're looking for another reason to be optimistic, just look to comments NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress made last month during an earnings call, with regards to supply.
"The holiday demand, for example, was quite strong, particularly in laptops. And we're still finishing out our quarter. But we'll look at the end of the quarter in terms of what we've seen in terms of channel levels. We had seen channel levels be quite lean, and we are working with our supply chain partners to increase the availability of supply. And we feel better about our supply situation as we move into the second half of the calendar year '22," Kress said.
Here's hoping that GPU prices continue to decline and, equally as important, that supplies improve as the year goes on.
