GPU pricing

[Norman]

So now I'm older and I'm not poor. I don't understand how GPU's are going up so much in price. They are saying next gen high end cards are going to between 1500-2000. How does a person justify that price? Where I live that is 100-133 hours of minimum wage work not accounting for any taxes being paid. So pretty much a full month of wages just to buy a GPU. If you took that money and spent it on a GPU, you wouldn't be able to have rent food or anything that month. I live in a country with a good min wage. What am I missing? 

[Spotty]

People who earn minimum wage probably should not be buying high end $2000 graphics cards. For people who have a higher income it's less of an issue. If you earn $100k+ per year and you upgrade your PC once every 3 years it's a little easier to swallow the high cost of GPUs. There's plenty of options for people who can't afford the top models of the latest GPUs, such as buying a more affordable mid range card, buying 2nd hand, or keeping what you currently have a little longer and waiting for prices to come down.

[Blademaster91]

25 minutes ago, Norman said:

So now I'm older and I'm not poor. I don't understand how GPU's are going up so much in price. They are saying next gen high end cards are going to between 1500-2000. How does a person justify that price? Where I live that is 100-133 hours of minimum wage work not accounting for any taxes being paid. So pretty much a full month of wages just to buy a GPU. If you took that money and spent it on a GPU, you wouldn't be able to have rent food or anything that month. I live in a country with a good min wage. What am I missing? 

The high end went from $800-1000 to $1500-2000, I usually didn't have a problem getting at least the x70Ti tier of Nvidia cards, but now prices on those are selling for what a x80Ti cards used to sell for. You'll either have to save up for a GPU, or buy a cheaper card.

[Chris Pratt]

This is not new, though prices have gone up some this generation. Simply $1000+ cards are not for the normal consumer. They're enthusiast/prosumer products, and like any such product you pay a lot for that level of performance. I'm running a 3060 Ti that retails for $500. That's still a good chunk of change, but with console prices at about $500 as well, not entirely unreasonable. It does 1440p with high/ultra quality at 60+ FPS. You only need more if you're trying to do 4K, which is still pretty unnecessary on PC, or you're a competitive gamer that just needs all the FPS possible.

[dizmo]

There are many different reasons for this, including issues with chip production, unprecedented demand, and even delivery issues.

On top of all of this, and something that I think a lot of people are somehow overlooking, is that gaming has been increasingly growing in popularity. That's going to mean a much larger group of people to buy said cards, and enough of those are going to be willing to shell out the high dollar figures we're starting to see. Also, as you've pointed out yourself, we're seeing an entire generation of gamers that are now earning more than they ever have, and are in their 30s. With this higher expendable income, it only makes sense that a business starts to offer products at those higher price points; maybe not to those looking to buy, but certainly from a business perspective.

 

Really, there hasn't been a massive increase in pricing. The 690, 7990 etc were all released at $999, which is just shy of $1,200 in today's dollars. As we see them increase in complexity with more memory etc, prices will creep up. IIRC the 3080Ti has an MSRP of $1,200, so, really, we're not seeing prices that are any higher than they were almost a decade ago.

 

As has already been stated, people making minimum wage shouldn't be buying flagship items.

 

38 minutes ago, Spotty said:

People who earn minimum wage probably should not be buying high end $2000 graphics cards. For people who have a higher income it's less of an issue. If you earn $100k+ per year and you upgrade your PC once every 3 years it's a little easier to swallow the high cost of GPUs. There's plenty of options for people who can't afford the top models of the latest GPUs, such as buying a more affordable mid range card, buying 2nd hand, or keeping what you currently have a little longer and waiting for prices to come down.

Also this ^
I have several friends making well in excess of $100k/year, and only one or two feel the need to upgrade yearly. The rest just keep their stuff until there's a decent bump in performance, usually every 2 - 4 years.

19 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

The high end went from $800-1000 to $1500-2000, I usually didn't have a problem getting at least the x70Ti tier of Nvidia cards, but now prices on those are selling for what a x80Ti cards used to sell for. You'll either have to save up for a GPU, or buy a cheaper card.

I don't think it's really fair to count the current pricing as what it's gone to. There's many external factors in current GPU pricing.

Now, if it goes up to that and stays that way once supply issues are sorted, then that's another thing. Though, honestly, I tend to think that's a more realistic pricing for the higher end cards, with mid tier maybe making sense around $699. Entry level (think 60 series) coming in at $499.

[Blademaster91]

32 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't think it's really fair to count the current pricing as what it's gone to. There's many external factors in current GPU pricing.

Now, if it goes up to that and stays that way once supply issues are sorted, then that's another thing. Though, honestly, I tend to think that's a more realistic pricing for the higher end cards, with mid tier maybe making sense around $699. Entry level (think 60 series) coming in at $499.

The current pricing is is fair enough because it isn't very likely that you'll find a GPU going for MSRP, the factors causing it being mining, chip shortages, and shipping issues are all factors.

But the current pricing isn't normal and it shouldn't be realistic at all, however there are plenty of gamers with enough of a budget to buy cards at hiked up prices so I don't see pricing coming down very much, even if supply and shipping returns to normal.

And pricing going up means PC gaming loses popularity and goes back to being a niche of PC enthusiasts that have an unlimited budget for the latest shiny new thing, everyone else either deals with lower settings on older hardware, builds an APU and plays older games, or just goes back to consoles.

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

There's plenty of options for people who can't afford the top models of the latest GPUs, such as buying a more affordable mid range card, buying 2nd hand, or keeping what you currently have a little longer and waiting for prices to come down.

Have you seen the 2nd hand market though? Cards from 2 or 3 generations ago are selling for original launch prices, "affordable" mid range is now priced at the upper high end, people are still buying gpu's so it might be a while before prices come down, and there would have to be a flood of used mining GPU's with a ton of supply of new cards for prices to come back down.

[Error 504]

i'm also looking to buy a graphics card. i have saved enough money to pay scalpers for these insanely priced cards.

after ebay search, these are the lowest prices i found for each series, and i tried to decide:

 

2080ti --> $1,600 cad

3080ti --> $2,500 cad

3090 --> $4,000 cad

 

red devil ultimate 6900xt ---> $3,100 cad

 

the way i see it. i just need something that does what i want for the time being. but something decent, put the rest of the money in the bank, and wait patiently until the 2nd half of next year when new graphics cards come out.

 

but then again, the shortage will probably continue, and even when the new cards come out next year, i don't think i'll have the time to sleep in the parking lot of a microcenter two weeks prior to the paper launch. so maybe i should just go all out and get a crazy card right now, which hopefully will last me through two more evolution cycles of the future graphic cards.

 

please advise. thanks.

 

 

 

 

[dizmo]

On 11/22/2021 at 5:20 PM, Blademaster91 said:

The current pricing is is fair enough because it isn't very likely that you'll find a GPU going for MSRP, the factors causing it being mining, chip shortages, and shipping issues are all factors.

But the current pricing isn't normal and it shouldn't be realistic at all, however there are plenty of gamers with enough of a budget to buy cards at hiked up prices so I don't see pricing coming down very much, even if supply and shipping returns to normal.

And pricing going up means PC gaming loses popularity and goes back to being a niche of PC enthusiasts that have an unlimited budget for the latest shiny new thing, everyone else either deals with lower settings on older hardware, builds an APU and plays older games, or just goes back to consoles.

No, it's not. You're assuming things based on a currently unhealthy market. Just because they cost that now due to shortages doesn't mean that's what they'll cost when there aren't any shortages. While yes, currently there are gamers that will pay that and the supply is flying off the shelves, you can't assume that will hold true when they have way more supply. If anything, the opposite makes more sense, as those with lower budgets will start to buy as well. Then it makes more sense to capture more of the market with lower priced cards. You won't see PC gaming losing that much popularity because of these price increases, either, as PC gaming has been enjoying a very low price barrier for a very long time.