What the heck is with these GPU prices?

[raven_]

I went to go check on some of the GPU prices after not checking for a while, and was surprised to say the least. A GTX 1070 costs around 600-700 now. And the one which I was originally going to buy 6-7 months ago was ~400. Here is the card I was originally going to buy 6-7 months ago - 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814487265
 

It's no longer in stock, and neither are any of the other cheaper and good quality cards.

 

Here is the price of an almost identicle card - 
 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIABVR5VS0144

 

Why have the prices jumped up? Will they drop eventually? I want to upgrade my PC, but there is no way I'm dropping this much on this card.

[Skiiwee29]

Cryto Currency mining and its likely going to be a few months minimum before they drop...

[Meag]

2 minutes ago, raven_ said:

I went to go check on some of the GPU prices after not checking for a while, and was surprised to say the least. A GTX 1070 costs around 600-700 now. And the one which I was originally going to buy 6-7 months ago was ~400. Here is the card I was originally going to buy 6-7 months ago - 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814487265
 

It's no longer in stock, and neither are any of the other cheaper and good quality cards.

 

Here is the price of an almost identicle card - 
 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIABVR5VS0144

 

Why have the prices jumped up? Will they drop eventually? I want to upgrade my PC, but there is no way I'm dropping this much on this card.

People are buying cards and lowering stock to use for crypto currency mining. Lower stocks means they are upping prices

[xsimplyjosh]

One word . Mining. Same case with amd rx 400/500 series they are approaching 1070 prices literally.... so mY case was looking at 1070 for a short thing but.....

 

that being said because the price hike brought it close to a 1080 of this i bought a 1080ti after doing a pure analysis of 1080 n 1080ti in comparison since these are less likely affected due to their high tdp (mining requires efficient power use over 24/7 activity afaik n these two hv higher tdp values) it is possible to mine with the higher two mentioned but that depends on ur electricity cost/hr n such...

 

so

 

sure its more expensive but i had to look at it as a 6-8 year purchase and i was like this is never going to drop ever lol despite it being lesser to the 1080/ti for gaming plus is future proofed for 4k 90% later on but my main intention was to do 1440p144hz ideally 

 

plus i have no buyers remorse its performing lovingly (1150aud). (and i save 200aud off by not giving into aussie retail shops)

 

So all in all is sorta worth.. plus im not evading or anything, just amazon is where its at. Wait was longer (11 business days) but made no sense to pay more for same thing

[alphaproject]

Sold and Shipped by idyiashop.... that's why. It's not actually Newegg.

[raven_]

Well, this blows. But why is this suddenly becoming a thing? Because of the price of Bitcoins going up? And why are people buying these cards in particular? I get that the cards are powerful, but aren't there cards out there designed for this sort of thing? (heard the abbreviation ASIC somewhere while looking this up) 

[ltguy]

See this is why I buy excess computer parts when they are on sale regardless of whether i have a use for them or not

[Simon771]

https://9gag.com/gag/aVqGAPM?ref=ios.s.email

[DrFantasty]

Everyones hopping on ether like crazy.My rx 480 Strix was no more than 250 and now its being sold off amazon sellers for 600+ 

Best thing to do is bid on Ebay,saw lots of stuff being auctioned off fairly reasonably. LOTS of  used mining Gpu's being sold too so be careful buying. 

[loculus]

2 hours ago, raven_ said:

Well, this blows. But why is this suddenly becoming a thing? Because of the price of Bitcoins going up? And why are people buying these cards in particular? I get that the cards are powerful, but aren't there cards out there designed for this sort of thing? (heard the abbreviation ASIC somewhere while looking this up) 

An ASIC is an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. Think of it as fixed-function hardware, a chip designed for a very specific task. Some cryptocurrencies are built on algorithms that can readily be implemented in ASICs, and have been (the hardware is available on the market and in use). Others are not and for practical purposes need more general-purpose computing. So for many, GPUs are the fastest and most efficient for doing all the mining-related computations. The graphics cards being bought up are the ones that are relatively fast and power efficient (and prior to the price increases, relatively good for the price) for that task.

 

Generally the more task-specific and fixed-function the hardware, the more efficient it can be at that one task. You can think of a CPU as even more general-purpose and flexible (and thus less efficient) than GPUs, but they can handle an even wider range of tasks and of course have already a lot of software written for them.

 

The recent spike in crypto pricing came around the last month or two. It's not actually that recent. For example ether (ethereum) is still about 3x the price it was around a month and a half ago, though down from the peak. Likewise ZCash and some others also over 3x in that span, though down from the peak. Those are among the more popular for GPU mining these days. Bitcoin itself is only up about 50% in that span, though it's also down from the peak. That said, Bitcoin's up 10x from where it was 2 years ago near the bottom after the late 2013 bubble.