GPU Availability and Pricing Update: November 2022

It's time to take a look at the current land of the GPU market place in our monthly update feature. In what shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, graphics cards are yet overly expensive and everyone involved is still making a ton of cash. To cite one example, Nvidia just announced their quarterly earnings which included a huge jump in yr-on-year acquirement for their gaming concern. And then if you're a GPU manufacturer, you can exist delighted with the current situation, and if you're a GPU buyer y'all'll be crying yourself to sleep.

Follow up: Stock Update December 2022, Jan 2022

In this edition of the GPU pricing update, we're not going to spend equally much time talking about the current retail market because not much has changed over the last few months. Pricing of graphics cards on shop shelves remains high, availability is pretty good in most regions, it's merely that the bodily prices of those GPUs are inflated due to a multifariousness of market pressures we've been talking well-nigh for months at present -- and all of it is unlikely to change throughout the busy holiday shopping menstruum.

In fact, we've been told by a couple of retailers that GPU sales right now aren't particularly great equally interest in cards at current prices is low, but they can't reduce prices due to insidious tactics from suppliers like bundling and uncomplicated price aggrandizement. So there appears to be a bit of a stalemate on that front.

What we practice want to embrace is the bigger question on everyone's listen for the past year: Volition GPU pricing e'er go downward? When will it go downwardly? And, are in that location any upcoming solutions to the trouble in the works?

Upcoming Releases, a Possible Solution?

I particular story that's been doing the rounds recently is that of an Nvidia RTX 2060 refresh with 12GB of VRAM. This launch has been bubbles away for some fourth dimension at present, with reports going back months, but it seems that things are gearing up to produce an RTX 2060 refresh erstwhile in Jan. Gigabyte models are starting to announced at the ECC, for example. Some are calling this a GPU aimed to combat miners and ease stock woes, just is this actually going to be the case?

From a production standpoint, information technology should be cheaper to build an RTX 2060 than Nvidia's other GPUs. It uses a previous-gen Turing GPU, which is congenital using TSMC's older and cheaper 12nm node, which is in slightly less demand than their leading edge nodes. However, the RTX 2060 even so uses GDDR6 memory, the same memory used on current GPUs including the RTX 3060, and the aforementioned amount as the 3060 at 12GB. And then if there are whatsoever supply constraints on GDDR6 retentiveness, or pricing on that retentiveness is still high, the RTX 2060 won't necessarily become a real solution to the GPU availability crunch.

However, considering it's congenital on a mature node, it is possible that total supply for Nvidia GPUs will increment, provided they take bought additional chapters at TSMC, and nosotros have no bear witness to know whether they have or non. If supply is fully maxed out on Samsung'south 8nm node with no room to buy additional chapters, and if supply of GPU dies is the key limitation for additional GPU production, then information technology's possible this launch volition increase supply.

But that's a lot of "ifs" and we're not convinced that simply reverting to an older pattern on a more mature node will significantly boost the supply of GPUs. Throughout last year nosotros heard of many cost hikes and availability problems for all sorts of components used in putting together a graphics card, everything from memory and surface components, to the PCBs themselves -- solving foundry capacity is not the simply limiting cistron.

The other large angle is, of course, mining. The theory is that the RTX 2060 is a less bonny bill of fare for miners compared to many others. However, that's not currently the case going by Whattomine's numbers. The RTX 2060 is more profitable right now than the RTX 3060, but that'south from mining smaller coins. It's true the RTX 2060 is a less attractive option than a 3060 for Ethereum, simply that'southward not the merely cryptocurrency you can mine. Besides consider that even the RX 6600 XT is beingness snapped up past miners and its profitability is inappreciably amazing, so we don't call up the RTX 2060 volition be any less attractive. In other words, we suspect it'd nevertheless exist bought up for mining.

In our stance, releasing an RTX 2060 refresh and expecting that to accept a meaning impact on GPU pricing is far fetched. It'south also highly unlikely that any refresh would be available at whatever MSRP Nvidia decides to set. They already accept the RTX 3060 at $330, AMD has the Radeon RX 6600 at $330, and there'southward a strong used market for RTX 2060s. Presumably, Nvidia would accept to set an MSRP below $330, but the current market prices for the aforementioned cards are all above $500 -- or above $700 in the instance of the 3060. Nvidia would need to produce a massive amount of these cards to drag pricing in the market lower.

Prospective GPU launches. What If...

With all of that said, nosotros don't think releasing a refreshed RTX 2060 is a bad move, as any minor modify may finish up helping some people buy a more affordable GPU. Information technology'south also possible that an RTX 2060 re-release would be more than attractive and ameliorate performing option than Nvidia releasing an RTX 3050 in the same price subclass. They could release an RTX 3050 at any moment (there'southward a laptop version already), so let's break down a few numbers.

We know based on our latest data that the RTX 2060 is about 17 per centum slower than the RTX 3060 at 1440p, and roughly 8 percent slower than an RX 6600. We also know from the mobile side that the RTX 3050 design using GA107, or even the RTX 3050 Ti for that affair, has at to the lowest degree 33 per centum fewer CUDA cores than an RTX 3060, and is express to either 4 or 8 GB configurations due to its 128-chip memory autobus (with lower retentiveness bandwidth to boot).

And then in mobile configurations, the RTX 3050 ends up somewhere between 25 and 35 percent slower than the RTX 3060, and many times information technology comes in slower than the RTX 2060. If it's cheaper or easier to produce the RTX 2060'due south 445 sq. mm TU106 die on TSMC 12nm than it is to produce the 3050'south sub-200 sq.mm GA107 die on Samsung 8nm, while also performing better, it would come out as the better option than moving forward with a desktop RTX 3050 design.

In that location have also been some rumors about a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and potentially other refreshes in the early parts of 2022, however I don't recall producing a new and super expensive GPU -- fifty-fifty more expensive than the RTX 3090 -- will assistance out besides much (at least not gamers).

However, a more than probable contender for improving the supply and pricing situation would be AMD's Navi 24 GPU designs, which nosotros have all the same to meet and are currently expected in the early parts of 2022. At the moment, AMD has simply released downward to their Navi 23 designs, which are 237 sq.mm of TSMC 7nm and currently sit as mid-range options.

Navi 24 would theoretically be a smaller, cheaper, easier to produce GPU with an MSRP in the $200 range (MSRP, market would button real street cost college in the current climate). We haven't seen whatsoever new GPUs in that sort of class since the GTX 16 Super serial and RX 5500 XT at the end of 2022. Then, of grade, we have upcoming Intel Arc GPUs arriving in early 2022, which will further add to GPU availability.

As far every bit GPU makers are concerned, the possible solution is to produce more than GPUs and produce new GPU options covering a wider pricing range, but this has been a slow process. At that place is petty incentive to speed that upward equally long as need for loftier-end GPUs remain sky loftier as it'due south in companies' all-time interest to sell more of those. Nvidia also has their LHR program to reduce mining profitability, though miners have been slowly chipping away at it.

Outside of continuing to produce GPUs at a record rate, in that location isn't a real "solution" or a quick fix to what nosotros're currently seeing. Companies can't just get to customers and say "okay guys, that's enough, stop buying our GPUs well above MSRP, please but buy at a lower price" – that's not how it works. Street pricing is dictated by supply and demand, and it's but when those things modify will we see price movement.

This makes the question of when pricing volition go downwardly difficult to answer. Pricing already has come downward from the accented worst period in 2022, but as expected has stagnated towards the busy shopping menstruum at the cease of the year. Personally I find it hard to make any sort of definitive predictions beyond that, equally in that location'south as well many things going on.

Withal the doom and gloom of GPU pricing remaining high I recollect is overblown as I've said before. Cards are already sitting on shelves at inflated pricing, and if that continues for many months, sales will dry up and this will strength pricing downward. We've seen peaks and troughs in the market before many times, this is really zero new, although exceptional circumstances this time around is extending that boom menses. Pricing for premium, high end cards will almost certainly blow out well by $1500 with a future generation though, only that doesn't mean there won't be cards available at prices points covering the unabridged market.

GPU Pricing Update

Now permit'southward talk about the current GPU market. Cryptocurrencies remain potent overall, with virtually coins including Ethereum increasing in value over the last month. This has as well seen an increase in difficulty, suggesting there'south even so interest in adding to the stockpile of GPUs beingness used for mining. Profitability for near of the month was increasing, until the last few days where crypto has cooled a scrap and left profitability calendar month on calendar month flat. In other words, it's been a pretty typical calendar month in 2022 for what'due south the primary driver in GPU pricing.

Street prices for new GPUs was evaluated using eBay completed listings in the past calendar week, which show that after a couple of months of relatively flat pricing, prices have risen in November.

That's expected because what'south happened in the crypto side, where scalper prices reflect crypto prices to a lower degree and with a bit of a delay. Nvidia GPUs saw an boilerplate price hike of 6% month on month, with the largest gains for the RTX 3090 and RTX 3060 Ti, and the lowest for the RTX 3070 which rose by iv%.

	MSRP	eBay Average Toll September	eBay Average Price October	eBay Average Price November	Current Toll Inflation	Price Increase October to November
GeForce RTX 3090	$1,500	$two,863	$2,818	$3,107	107%	10%
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	$1,200	$1,880	$1,851	$1,916	60%	4%
GeForce RTX 3080	$700	$1,673	$i,534	$1,584	126%	3%
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	$600	$1,191	$1,151	$1,227	104%	7%
GeForce RTX 3070	$500	$1,180	$ane,121	$one,170	134%	4%
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	$400	$866	$860	$946	136%	ten%
GeForce RTX 3060	$330	$708	$692	$739	124%	7%
				Average	113%	6%

Despite these price increases, Nvidia GPUs are nonetheless selling for some of the lowest prices nosotros've seen in 2022. Pricing is similar to the level we observed in Baronial and September, which is lower than the peaks seen in 2022.

	MSRP	eBay Average Price September	eBay Average Price October	eBay Boilerplate Price November	Electric current Price Aggrandizement	Cost Increase Oct to November
Radeon 6900 XT	$i,000	$ane,569	$1,493	$1,585	59%	six%
Radeon 6800 XT	$650	$1,411	$1,388	$1,524	134%	ten%
Radeon 6800	$580	$1,309	$ane,254	$1,413	144%	13%
Radeon 6700 XT	$480	$881	$872	$980	104%	12%
Radeon RX 6600 XT	$380	$639	$621	$689	81%	11%
Radeon RX 6600	$330		$571	$584	77%	2%
				Average	100%	ix%

On the AMD side, pricing increased to a greater degree than Nvidia, which I suspect is due to AMD's lower sales volume and no restrictions over mining performance. New AMD GPUs from the Radeon RX 6000 series were up ix% month on calendar month, including large gains for products like the 6700 XT. The 6600 was spared, as it already received the majority of its price inflation at launch last month.

Similar with Nvidia, the pricing tendency for AMD GPUs has been billowy around for the last few months but hasn't inverse essentially. Pricing is lower than what we saw in May and June, which was the height for AMD products. Based on product volume, information technology doesn't seem like AMD is placing a huge priority on pushing out a ton of GPUs, except for the 6700 XT which is moving in decent amounts.

Used GPU Pricing

When there are increases in make new, electric current-gen GPUs, there are like increases in the used marketplace. The GeForce RTX 20 serial saw price hikes across the board, with a hike of 6 percent month on month.

The RTX 2060 Super was the nigh afflicted and somehow information technology's selling for $xxx more than than the RTX 2070 on average. All of these GPUs are selling for well in a higher place their launch MSRP.

	MSRP	eBay Average Toll September	eBay Average Price October	eBay Boilerplate Price November	Electric current Price Inflation	Price Increase October to November
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	$one,000	$one,158	$1,102	$i,182	18%	seven%
GeForce RTX 2080 Super	$700	$804	$786	$841	xx%	7%
GeForce RTX 2080	$700	$736	$713	$772	10%	8%
GeForce RTX 2070 Super	$500	$720	$722	$768	54%	six%
GeForce RTX 2070	$500	$650	$676	$700	40%	3%
GeForce RTX 2060 Super	$400	$662	$657	$732	83%	11%
GeForce RTX 2060	$350	$514	$535	$543	55%	i%
				Average	40%	6%

	MSRP	eBay Average Price September	eBay Boilerplate Price October	eBay Average Price November	Current Price Inflation	Price Increment October to November
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti	$280	$491	$476	$497	78%	4%
GeForce GTX 1660 Super	$230	$494	$486	$520	126%	7
GeForce GTX 1660	$220	$378	$387	$417	90%	8%
GeForce GTX 1650 Super	$160	$302	$299	$315	97%	half-dozen%
GeForce GTX 1650	$150	$262	$266	$263	75%	-ane%
				Average	93%	v%

	MSRP	eBay Boilerplate Price September	eBay Boilerplate Toll October	eBay Boilerplate Price November	Current Price Inflation	Price Increase October to November
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	$700	$676	$669	$697	0%	4%
GeForce GTX 1080	$600	$459	$464	$508	-15%	10%
GeForce GTX 1070 Ti	$450	$451	$453	$462	iii%	ii%
GeForce GTX 1070	$380	$373	$380	$416	9%	9%
GeForce GTX 1060 6GB	$250	$309	$297	$326	30%	ten%
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB	$200	$214	$214	$235	17%	10%
				Average	vii%	7%

The GeForce 16 series is Nvidia's current mainstream range, although nosotros're looking exclusively at used pricing here. Almost GPUs increased in price, and information technology's ridiculous that cards like the GTX 1660 Super are selling for more than $500 used at the moment. I'm hoping the supposed RTX 2060 refresh and new Navi 24 GPUs volition accept some bear on here, but I'm not counting on it.

The GeForce 10 series also saw price hikes, particularly for the GTX 1060 series which is servicing the $300 market place at the moment. If you were building a new PC and only had $300 to spend on a GPU, unfortunately the GTX 1060 is one of the all-time products to choose right now, still it nonetheless costs a lot more than its $250 launch price for the 6GB version.

When mining profitability goes up, then does the cost for AMD's Radeon RX 5000 series GPUs, especially the 5700 XT. Information technology's pretty wild that right now, the 5700 XT is selling for slightly more than $1,000, which is two.5x its launch MSRP of $400. Collectively, these are the highest prices for Radeon RX 5000 series GPUs since May, which is no coincidence equally cryptocurrency prices are higher now than they were back so.

AMD's older GPUs have as well increased in price. Just similar before, RX 580 GPUs are not worth buying for gaming compared to the GTX 1060. If you lot asked me several years ago whether nosotros'd however be talking virtually the RX 580 and GTX 1060 at the stop of 2022, I'd say you were dreaming, but here nosotros are.

	MSRP	eBay Average Price September	eBay Average Cost Oct	eBay Average Price November	Current Price Inflation	Price Increase Oct to November
Radeon 5700 XT	$400	$865	$943	$1,007	152%	7%
Radeon 5700	$350	$829	$817	$920	163%	13%
Radeon 5600 XT	$280	$620	$617	$663	137%	eight%
Radeon 5500 XT 8GB	$200	$404	$408	$442	121%	8%
				Boilerplate	143%	nine%

The Waiting Game

And then that's the state of the GPU marketplace in November 2022. GPU prices are up across the board, and information technology seems that the upcoming "solution" to this may come up in the grade of a new range of graphics cards in early 2022 -- specifically the supposed RTX 2060 refresh, Navi 24 GPUs from AMD, and of class, Intel'southward new Arc serial. Whether or non these will assist to push GPU pricing downwardly is some other word entirely, but as well they can't injure the situation.

With cryptocurrency prices remaining loftier and an increase in demand at the cease of every twelvemonth due to holiday shopping, it was unlikely that GPU prices would get down correct before Christmas. There was certainly very lilliputian chance AIBs and distributors would lower prices during this time when they've managed to squeeze the market place all year, too, and we'd expect the tendency to continue in December.

As nosotros striking the terminal month of 2022, what should yous do in terms of buying new hardware?

Well, if you are building a new PC from scratch or wanting to jump into PC gaming, there'south piddling choice but to pay ludicrous prices, although some products are improve buys than others. Products like the RX 6600 are amidst the amend value buys, while at that place are several older used GPUs that you should definitely avert, like the RX 5700 XT, which is overly inflated because of its mining performance. The other two 18-carat options are to catch a pre-built organization (meet our picks here) or forget about PC gaming and take hold of a panel instead, as long as you tin can also discover one readily available.

For those with existing PCs, in that location is little reason to upgrade right at present. The bulk of today's big PC releases play fine on older hardware, and titles similar Battlefield 2042, to cite ane example, would probable benefit more from a CPU upgrade than GPU upgrade -- fifty-fifty the RX 580 is fine at 1080p ultra settings provided your CPU is good plenty.

Older GPUs are also fine in titles like Far Cry 6 even at 1440p using medium settings. Sure, the experience isn't as skillful equally information technology could be, but it's not like this current moving ridge of new game releases is unplayable on older hardware. Equally we've shown earlier, ultra settings often don't brand sense and playing on high or even medium visual presets is fine, which further enables gaming on existing GPUs.