Graphics cards are getting more expensive again

Please, we just want to play games

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The price of graphics cards has been a sore subject for many over the last year, with a tragic mix of hardware shortages and high demand causing massive inflation.

With China’scrackdown on Cryptominingoperations resulting inex-mining GPUs flooding the market, it was anticipated that we could finally start to see prices ofnew hardware drop to something more affordable, but it seems recent market analysis suggests we’re not out of the woods yet.

MyDrivers, a Chinese language tech website, reports that the supply ofNvidia RTX 30 series graphics cardswill drop by 30% compared to August, with the RTX 3060 suffering from a 50% reduction in expected availability, and prices are increasing again for just about every GPU on the market – even including older hardware like theNvidiaGTX 1050 Ti.

The sorry state of silicon

Videocardzconverted the price hikes of various in-demand Nvidia graphics cards from yuan to USD in its own reporting, and notes thatAMDGPU stock appears to be less affected by shortages despite also facing inflated prices.

Asus:

Gigabyte:

We reported last week thatTSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is looking to raise pricesby as much as 20% to offset the huge spike in demand for chips, but there wasn’t a guarantee that manufacturers would pass on these costs to consumers.

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We can’t be certain that the price increases we’re seeing are reflective of the increased manufacturing costs, and various other reasons such as temporary closures of GPU assembly lines due to new COVID outbreaks have also been cited as a cause for hardware shortages, but knowingwhyGPUs are more expensive is going to be of little comfort to consumers who have been waiting patiently for the grotesque inflation to drop and for stock to be more plentiful to reduce scalping.

Analysis: We’re in this for the long run

While some of the above price changes are small, there’s little reason for an older GPU like the GTX 1050 Ti to receive a price bump when newer entry-level cards with a relatively affordable MSRP exist on the market, such as theRTX 3060. This paints a concerning picture for the coming months of availability, and while this is purely speculative, it looks like we’re going to suffer through low stock and artificially inflated prices for a good while.

We also wouldn’t discredit that this is happening in China rather than in western countries like the USA. A blend of misfortune means no singular reason can be blamed for the current market situation, but a key issue is a supply, with the Covid-19 pandemic causing production to slip. As China is a major manufacturer for electronics, it’s likely we will see this trickle across to the wider global market.

If you’ve been trying to get your hands on a new GPU at a reasonable price then you’re in for a lengthy wait. Our best advice is tolook into buying a gaming laptopor, if your internet connection is good enough, consider trying streaming services likeNvidia GeForce Now. With any luck, production will increase and the graphics card market could start to eventually stabilize, but it’s unlikely we’ll see much improvement before 2022.

You might also want to check out thebest cheap graphics cards.

Jess is a former TechRadar Computing writer, where she covered all aspects of Mac and PC hardware, including PC gaming and peripherals. She has been interviewed as an industry expert for the BBC, and while her educational background was in prosthetics and model-making, her true love is in tech and she has built numerous desktop computers over the last 10 years for gaming and content creation. Jess is now a journalist at The Verge.

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