Nvidia and AMD recently announced new lines of graphics cards with enticing options for almost any budget.
If you’re stuck with an Nvidia 10 series card or a Radeon RX 5000 and skipped the Nvidia 20 series, you might want an update. The next RTX 3060 seems to be a particularly interesting option for 329 dollars.
However, this is the worst time to buy a new GPU. A combination of dealers, cryptocurrency miners, stock issues, and general pandemic mayhem means you’ll find a full list of sold out cards with far higher prices than you expected.
You might want to check out our article on the best graphics cards.
Scalping and crypto-currencies
Let’s start with the hottest topic of the last few months: resellers. The idea of reselling, i.e. buying as many products as possible at launch to resell them at a higher value, is not a new concept, but the shift to online selling during the launch. pandemic has made it easier than ever for them. looking to earn some money.
This has happened with valuable and in demand technologies like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and unfortunately it is spreading to graphics cards as well.
Tech-savvy resellers have turned to bots to bid, using automated systems to grab as much stock as possible within seconds of the ads being posted to online stores.
These resellers then turn to sites like Facebook, Gumtree and eBay to resell the graphics cards, taking advantage of the lack of stock to drive up prices and profit from the interest.
It’s a dodgy business, people hate it and retailers are trying to find a solution, but it happens too often right now.
However, climbers aren’t the only problem – apart from competing with those who want to resell the GPU for a little extra cash, you also compete with cryptocurrency miners.
For the uninitiated, you can generate cryptocurrency on your own, but it requires a lot of graphics power, and the more you have, the more you can earn, and “miners” can quickly recoup the cost of graphics cards that they need. ‘they buy.
Not worth it if you have a basic PC – hardcore miners have some awesome setups, typically costing several thousand pounds.
The situation was similar in 2017, with a limited supply of GPUs for months to come, and it looks like the big performance jump in recent GPUs from AMD and Nvidia means that crypto miners are back in search of a update.
More power = more money, so people buy all the GPUs they can get. Not only does this make it harder for gamers to get graphics cards, but it also drives up prices.
There are also doubts about manufacturing issues and the relatively small batches of the latest Nvidia and AMD GPUs released for sale at any time.
The RTX 3080 launch in September 2020 was the best example of this, as cards ran out seconds after they went on sale and caused Nvidia to delay the RTX 3070 launch to try and troubleshoot Stock.
It is true that in the last few months there have been more stocks, but a lot of it depends on how lucky you are to be able to find them before they run out. And with Nvidia confirming that it won’t be shipping its own Founders Edition of the upcoming RTX 3060 – a change from the rest of the 30 Series – there’s certainly a big question mark regarding manufacturability right now.
As if that weren’t enough, the situation is about to get worse.
Why are graphics cards more expensive in 2021?
The lack of Stock The additional GPUs and manufacturing costs mean prices are likely to rise in the near future, as Asus’ CTO of Marketing Juan José Gurrero III hinted in an already deleted post on Facebook.
The engineer suggested that rising component costs, operating costs, and import duties increase the overall cost of manufacturing GPUs and motherboards, and recommended prices for new graphics cards may increase for this reason.
But what if I really want a new GPU?
If you’ve read the above and still want to get one of the latest GPUs from Nvidia or AMD to upgrade your gaming gear, we can help.
The best option is to subscribe to the stock notifications from the online store. Stores will email all subscribers when new stock appears, giving you the best chance to arrive early and grab one.
You can also turn to the wider gaming community for help, as there are dedicated Discord servers for tracking the stock of various GPUs across the world. We’ve heard of the CtrlAltStock community, of course, but there are plenty more to choose from.
Either way, it’s a chaotic time to buy a graphics card and that’s a shame considering the Nvidia RTX 30 and AMD Radeon 6000 series offer a significant boost in performance and ray tracing capabilities.
We can only hope that the supply issues will be resolved quickly, the stock will start to flow, and gamers will be able to source the latest GPUs as we approach 2021.
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