The unstable supply situation for some of AMD’s and Nvidia’s Best Graphics cards appears to be improving slightly. Hundreds of AMD RX 6000 and Nvidia RTX 30 cards are now available to order across the PC hardware retailer and etailer chain, following months of supply shock with demand outstripping supply to the point that all stock sold out in minutes. This is a far cry from the supply situations that prompted “blink and you’ll miss it” comments in recent months. Despite this, prices have not evolved in lockstep with supply.
On the EU side of the equation, PC hardware vendors and pricing comparison sites in France, Germany, and Portugal all display the same trend, with hundreds of individually referenced graphics cards available in varying quantities from various retailers. In the United States, the situation appears to be the same: many graphics cards are listed across manufacturers on Newegg, but stocks aren’t being quickly depleted. We just reported on supply levels for PC components and consumer electronics that are 29% and 55% greater than pre-pandemic levels, respectively – there appears to be no immediate fear of shortage.
The single most crucial cause for the stock’s rise is most likely tied to the recent cryptocurrency market crash, which saw Ethereum’s value plummet dramatically. Lower bitcoin values mean that any fresh investment will take longer to recoup: we just ran the numbers and found that in the best-case situations, mining will take 500+ days to break even. Furthermore, the Ethereum ecosystem is gradually shifting away from mining Proof of Work (PoW) in favor of Proof of Stake (PoS), which does not inspire trust in time-locked mining expenditures.
However, the global supply chain is still struggling from the COVID-19 demand surge, with increased wafer pricing hitting silicon designers like AMD and Nvidia merchants. In general, businesses strive to maintain their margins and pass on the higher expenses to the next step in the supply chain. Retailers, in turn, pay greater prices for each graphics card from distributors.
Shops may be now stockpiling graphics card inventory that isn’t selling owing to a lack of demand at the existing pricing structure. Since neither AMD nor Nvidia has lately introduced new graphics card families, it might be claimed that users who could and were willing to spend more than the retail price for their GPUs are already well served by the market. The fact that both businesses will release their next-generation graphics goods later this year doesn’t entice savvy customers to buy graphics cards with markups of more than 100%.
Retailers appear to be beginning to stockpile unsold inventory, implying that we are entering a phase where the supply/demand equation can once again take hold. If this happens, graphics card prices should fall as shops gradually lower them, enticing the few remaining buyers.
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