Graphics card pricing appears to be returning to normal levels, which is a rare bit of good news in this industry. The numbers from 3DCenter.org, which track the average of the best pricing for the latest Ampere and RDNA2 graphics cards, show a lower trend over the previous three weeks, which is a promising sign for the future of the industry.
Is it possible that we’ll see cards return to their usual MSRPs before the summer months?
For AMD’s RDNA 2 cards, the average pricing for the best bargains has dropped from 63 percent over the MSRP to just 45 percent above, while the average pricing for Nvidia’s cards has dropped from 77 percent above to just 57 percent above. Those numbers represent drops of 18 and 20 percent, respectively.
There are a few of essential cautions to keep in mind while looking at these data, but don’t let them put you off the idea that everything is going to be all right after all. These figures were compiled from large German and Austrian stores, and as a result, they may not be representative of other merchants throughout the world.
To be clear, the PC market in Germany is widely seen to be in a stable state, so don’t write it off entirely because of this perception.
Recent releases have also had an impact on the numbers. – Despite the fact that both the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 were announced in January, they are the most affordable cards of this generation in their respective camps—a fact that will undoubtedly drive average prices down. These do, however, join very loaded families, which minimizes their impact on the averages as a result of their inclusion.
Is this a trend that will continue? It’s difficult to be positive in this situation because prices looked very similar to this back in July 2021, right before prices jumped again, maybe as a result of an increase in the value of cryptocurrency, which in turn raised demand for mining cards, as previously said. Cryptocurrencies did see a brief fall at the end of January, but they have since recovered, indicating that demand for them is likely to increase in the coming weeks and months.
We can only hope that history does not repeat itself.
