Turn out the lights, the party's over. Graphics card vendors enjoyed a boost in sales thanks in large part to the Bitcoin mining craze (along with other forms of virtual currency, like Litecoin) that everyone seemed to get caught up in, but the thing about these cryptocurriences is that they're exceedingly difficult to mine and profit from as time goes on. Now that virtual coin mining has cooled off a bit, so too has the demand for GPUs.

Citing sources from "graphics card players," Digitimes says worldwide videocard shipments are about to fall off a cliff -- more specifically, shipments are expected to decline anywhere from 30 percent to 40 percent this quarter compared to the previous one.


The sources specifically point out dropping demand by the Bitcoin community. If you recall, AMD's R7 and R9 Series were a bit hard to come by for awhile, and when they were in stock, they carried inflated price tags. AMD made a concerted effort to splash the market with more inventory, and combined with reduced demand from virtual coin miners, you can now find R7 and R9 Series cards in stock and priced appropriately.

NVIDIA's graphics cards aren't as popular for Bitcoin and Litecoin mining, tough they're still used by some. In any event, now that the virtual coin mining craze has subsided a bit, we can get back to watching AMD and NVIDIA compete on price and bundles.