It seems the crippling GPU shortage has finally ended, with Nvidia declaring its RTX 30 Series graphic cards are “restocked and reloaded”, and will stay in stock for the foreseeable future.
Aside from the announcement that “GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards are now available,” Nvidia cards also seem to have dropped substantially in price, with a number of Australian retailers slashing the RTX 3080 by 35 per cent last month.
GPU pricing is falling off a cliff right now. Locally the "ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC" was $2299 yesterday, today a few retailers have slashed it to $1499 AUD. That's 35% off over night.
(kick in the capacitors if you bought one yesterday)
— Hardware Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) March 15, 2022
This is a huge relief for gamers, who saw GPU prices skyrocket by 300 per cent over the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, as resellers took advantage of a two-year global shortage. Demand from cryptocurrency miners, who needed these same GPUs, further hiked the price.
During its investor day last month, Jeff Fisher, Nvidia’s senior vice president spoke of this demand: “The GPU is offering more value than ever. Based on our data, they are spending $300 more than they paid for the graphics card they replaced.”
This pricing is clearly unsustainable.
Nvidia will, however, have a huge year of sales, considering another stat Fisher shared: 71 per cent of Nvidia users have GTX-series graphics cards from at least two generations ago.
That’s a lot of customers hankering for an upgrade.
