Overpriced everything.

[kucharczykt]

Why are the prices of so many pc components (especially cpus and gpus) being ramped up so much? Will pricing continue to have an upwards trend if so will it stay there or will prices come back down? Can we expect prices to plateau soon, either way will prices be going back down and if so when can I expect this to happen. I saw Tom hardware post an article saying gpu pricing may go up ~5-25% but this wasnt soppost to go into effect till next year. I'm looking to build a new pc soon (I'm wishing I would have done it this time last year) but I don't want to pay more than necessary and I'm willing to wait a while for prices to go down but I don't know if they will.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 minutes ago, kucharczykt said:

Why are the prices of so many pc components (especially cpus and gpus) being ramped up so much? Will pricing continue to have an upwards trend if so will it stay there or will prices come back down? Can we expect prices to plateau soon, either way will prices be going back down and if so when can I expect this to happen. I saw Tom hardware post an article saying gpu pricing may go up ~5-25% but this wasnt soppost to go into effect till next year. I'm looking to build a new pc soon (I'm wishing I would have done it this time last year) but I don't want to pay more than necessary and I'm willing to wait a while for prices to go down but I don't know if they will.

They will, we just had a ton of product launches, during a pandemic, which hindered distribution and caused much higher demand than usual as more people wanted a new PC, while launching new consoles using the same manufacturing plants which ALSO had a higher demand than usual.

 

Now WHEN this smoothes out we cannot say, but we'll get there.

[dizmo]

Demand is drastically outpacing supply. That's about it.

When will it be normal? No one really knows. We can hope for the summer, but it's entirely possible that a second strain of the virus takes much heavier tolls than the first, and we see further disruptions.

[Roswell]

Prices aren’t going to go backwards until the bubble bursts. It’s not just increased demand driving up costs, it’s also the chip makers jacking up MSRP prices 75% over 5 years.

 

Desktop PC components are obscenely overpriced and will continue to be so until gamers stop overspending. 
 

Outside of the PC gaming bubble, laptops and prebuilt office desktops are as reasonably priced as ever because the demographics that purchase them don’t overspend with reckless abandon.

[kucharczykt]

1 minute ago, Vitamanic said:

Prices aren’t going to go backwards until the bubble bursts. It’s not just increased demand driving up costs, it’s also the chip makers jacking up MSRP prices 75% over 5 years.

 

Desktop PC components are obscenely overpriced and will continue to be so until consumers stop overspending. 

So uh buy while the prices are "down"? Or buy used.

[GreatnessRD]

15 minutes ago, kucharczykt said:

So uh buy while the prices are "down"? Or buy used.

Even the used market is looking crazy. I said I thought thinks would start to somewhat get back to normal end of January. But after seeing the continued goofiness going on, the poster above may be correct with their summer time analysis.

[CommanderAlex]

32 minutes ago, GreatnessRD said:

Even the used market is looking crazy. I said I thought thinks would start to somewhat get back to normal end of January. But after seeing the continued goofiness going on, the poster above may be correct with their summer time analysis.

I'm seeing the same thing in the used market by me. I just look just for the hell of it but man, the prices people are asking for used parts is insane. 

 

You also have an affect now that ASUS is also jacking up prices due to situations outside of their control and may follow suite with other PC component manufacturers. 

Supply is very low and demand is high with more people staying home and looking for things to do. 

 

[Andreas Lilja]

1 hour ago, LloydLynx said:

Capitalism. Sellers have learned they can get away with higher prices, so they will sell at higher prices. You can see this happening most with scalpers selling RTX 3000, Ryzen 5000, and the new consoles. Using bots to mass buy low supply high value product for higher resale is both a great business move and a terrible moral move.

Did the PS5s really sell at $1400 CAD? 

 

The new price seems to be $1000, guess they're stuck with the inventory. 

[p51mustang23]

I saw r5 3600's, which have already been superceeded by the 5600, going for 15% over MSRP, and out of stock in some places.  Wild!

it's possible that old discontinued items are drying up because the new hardware launches just arent keeping up.  That means you can't even buy last gen for a decent price anymore.  

Gotta set inventory alerts on your phone, I guess. 

[Twolf]

You have lots of resellers buying up stock as soon as it's listed for the MSRP and then flipping it for a 50% or more mark-up in a lot of cases. There are actual "legitimate" business's out there that do this as well as just people in a basement that happen to have a bot program of some kind. It does suck, and morally, ya, it's kind of reprehensible, but unfortunately, it's all perfectly legal (especially in a capitalist society, which, most "major" countries are).

 

Plus yes, a lot of the tariffs that were suspended, became active again effective January 1st, 2021. That definitely did not help matters. Some of those may be reversed with the next administration, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

Supply is also limited with Covid interfering with production and slowing it down. Demand is ridiculously high, also because of Covid, people are locked in their homes and bored stupid. So they need to find ways to entertain themselves, as such, the gaming market has seen a rather large growth over the past year, increasing the demand. Heck, I've even seen case fans being flipped (ones I am wanting, MSRP is roughly $80 US for a 3pack, currently can't find any under $130 + shipping... from China, so it takes almost a month to get to you if you do order it from them... which I won't because I refuse to support that practice, but others aren't so scrupulous as to how they get their parts, so long as they get them).

 

Therein lies the other issue. People will still pay the stupid prices just so they can get the product now, rather than having to wait 6 months or more for things to stabilize (and when something new probably comes out, that also becomes hard to find).

 

Yes, it really sucks. Unfortunately, the only thing we can do is boycott the resellers as much as we can, to drive prices back down to MSRP, as well as to prevent them from having the revenue to keep doing such a practice. Until such a time though that the vast majority refuse to give in to these extortionists (yes, I view it as extortion), to where it's no longer profitable for them to do this, we'll be stuck unfortunately having to deal with it and just biding our time. Also, while we could try to blame the manufactures or the retailers not having enough bot protections in place, a lot of them do try, but the programmers of the bots just find new ways to circumvent those safeguards. It's a never-ending cycle.

[Cmin]

In the US the prices will likely increase for the foreseeable future. There is a trade war between the US and China which brought tariffs on imports to the US. Anything new that has parts made in China will have a tariff on top of the normal price.

[kucharczykt]

33 minutes ago, Cmin said:

In the US the prices will likely increase for the foreseeable future. There is a trade war between the US and China which brought tariffs on imports to the US. Anything new that has parts made in China will have a tariff on top of the normal price.

Is there any way to get around this?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Everything is fucked up right now. The meshify c on newegg was like 200 (usually 70-90) a week ago, and the RM750x was like 170 (usually like 130-140iirc) then, too. 

*inner hamilton fan kicks in*

JUST YOYU WAIT.

(for parts to become available)

[Cmin]

8 minutes ago, kucharczykt said:

Is there any way to get around this?

Nope, this us an unfortunate turn of events for computer enthusiasts.