Analyst Dr. Jon Peddie offered some facts on how the top graphics cards have been more expensive over the years in a new study published on Graphic Speak. We also looks at the present high costs for AMD and Nvidia’s latest graphics cards, predicting that when stores have surplus inventory, prices would drop.
Since the Ethereum mining boom, the average selling price for discrete graphics cards has risen by orders of magnitude. As a result, miners began to stockpile GPUs, resulting in a scarcity and higher pricing. When the epidemic struck, the situation became even worse, with the supply chain collapsing and graphics card inventory rapidly diminishing. Scalpers took advantage of the situation and deployed bots to purchase all of the graphics cards in order to resell them later on eBay.
According to Peddie’s findings, increased demand and mining both contributed to high pricing. Between 2019 and 2020, the AIB average selling price had the most substantial increase. Remember that the first coronavirus cases were reported in China in December 2019, and things only got worse from there. In instance, the AIB average selling price in 2019 was just over $400, and in 2020, it was almost $700, representing a 75 percent price rise. Between 2020 and 2021, pricing continued to rise, but the margin was significantly reduced.
graphics cards are being sold at thrice their MSRP
AIBs in the gaming and mining industries had set their prices two to three times higher than mobile graphics cards. Peddie, on the other hand, feels that the miners and scalpers are to blame for the increase in PC AIB pricing, rather than a supply shortfall.
Graphics card manufacturers, according to Peddie, aren’t benefiting from the price increase. Instead, it is the retailers (Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, etc.) and scalpers that earn handsomely. Meanwhile, retailers such as Best Buy got more inventive, charging $200 for Nvidia’s Ampere graphics cards. Unfortunately, the approach backfired, assisting scalpers rather than gamers in obtaining graphics cards.
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