Video cards have become much more expensive in recent years. Well-known analyst Jon Peddie has collected data on how the average selling price of video cards has changed over the years since 2008. His research was published by Graphic Speak. The article also looks at the current inflated prices of AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and predicts how they will change in the future.
As you can see in the chart below, the most stable period was from 2011 to 2014, when the average price of a video card was around $250. It is also interesting to note that in 2009, 2010 and 2016 the average prices were decreasing. The rise began in 2017 with the growing popularity of Ethereum. Then the prices froze, but not for long.
The biggest jump in the average price of video cards happened between 2019 and 2020. So, if in 2019 the average price of a video card was a little over $400, then in 2020 it was already approaching $700 – an increase of about 75% in just a year. In 2021, prices continued to rise, but not so much.
Such a sharp increase is primarily due to the sharp rise in the popularity of cryptocurrencies, which are mined using video cards. The coronavirus pandemic has also played a role. All together led to a shortage of video cards. Then speculators became active, who bought up any video cards that appeared in stores and resold them at exorbitant prices. And this is not even a figure of speech – in some periods, the prices for video cards were indeed almost three times higher than the recommended ones.
The analyst blames the rise in prices for video cards precisely on miners and resellers, and not at all on video card manufacturers. The expert emphasizes that video card manufacturers themselves did not benefit from the shortage and subsequent price increases. The cream was removed both by dealers and by the retailers themselves.
At the moment, video cards are still being sold at very inflated prices. Moreover, NVIDIA solutions are overestimated more. For example, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 sell for 91% and 75% more than their recommended prices, respectively. Mass GeForce RTX 3050 is offered at 40% more than the recommended price. In turn, AMD video cards have a maximum markup of 30% – the flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT. And the massive Radeon RX 6600 is now offered at a markup of just 15%.
In general, it is noted that the prices of video cards continue to fall. Peddy believes prices will drop sharply as retailers and speculators have excess inventory they can’t sell. But when this will happen is not yet clear.
If you notice an error, select it with the mouse and press CTRL + ENTER.