And the news keeps getting worse for people trying to build a new system. Those looking to buy graphics cards are competing between money changers and miners to get cards. Remember, many claim that NVIDIA is selling cards directly to miners. Some may say, I’m going to settle for a gaming laptop, but miners are also buying gaming laptops to mine encryption. If you step down and settle for a console, you will have to deal with money changers because the consoles are also being resold due to low inventory and high demand.
Tariffs, Chinese New Year and supply of raw materials, all in short supply due to shortage of GPU
Last December, I covered data on the resale market for these products, but decided that an update was necessary due to the worsening problem. Michael Driscoll went ahead and collected all the data for these products resold on eBay in January. Tom’s Hardware worked with him to obtain updated data on the video card market. The new data, to say the least, is disappointing from an observer’s perspective and discouraging from a buyer’s perspective.
Source: Michael Driscoll
Why are we seeing an increase in the price of these components? It is not the simplest case here. Most would assume that, as the pandemic appears to be more in control, production would return to a normal state, but that simply did not happen. Many factors have caused this. The most obvious answer to the scarcity is the lack of raw materials. The supply chain has been disrupted, so production will also be disrupted. AMD has said on several occasions that getting the substrate packaging has become increasingly difficult.
Source: Michael Driscoll
A person who does not have the complete picture would respond with if the scarcity still continues, why do prices keep increasing with approximately the same demand? The most obvious of these would be the fees, but the price jump in the resale listings for low-cost cards is greater than the price jump in the MSRP of those cards. Certainly a factor, but it is definitely not the main reason why the price may have occurred.
Source: Michael Driscoll
These factories are located in Asia, specifically in Taiwan and China. The reason this is important is the celebration of the Chinese New Year. This holiday virtually interrupts work in these regions for one to two weeks. If no stock is leaving the factories, resellers can squeeze the market and get people who need or really want a GPU to buy at an even higher price.
Data shows that 15,300 graphics cards were sold on eBay by NVIDIA and AMD
Let’s look at the data. Approximately 15,300 graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA have been sold on eBay since the beginning of January. Most of the cards are from the green team. More than 14,000 NVIDIA cards, from the RTX 3060 Ti to the RTX 3090. About 3,000 RTX 3060 Ti were sold on eBay. The RTX 3070 had about 5,400 sold on eBay and is by far the most popular card. The RTX 3080 ranks second behind the RTX 3080 with around 3,400 sales. The king of programming is the last one with around 2,300 sales.
AMD suffers the same fate, but fewer cards are sold due to less inventory. The RX 6900 XT had 334 sales. The RX 6800 XT had 448 sales and the RX 6800 is just behind with 434 sales. Combine all of that and you will have a total of 1,216 sales. That is not even the sales of a single NVIDIA card. This only shows the scarcity problems that AMD is facing because the MSRP of these cards compared to performance in crypto mining would be a popular option. AMD accounts for only 8% of the video card resale market.
In addition to being sold at an incredible rate, people are paying exorbitant amounts for these cards. Consider the increase in the resale price from January to February. Let me remind you that the January price that we are comparing to the February price is not the MSRP. It is the average card resale price that is already well above your MSRP. The average January resale price of the RTX 3060 Ti was $ 690, the RTX 3070 was $ 804, the RTX 3080 was $ 1,290, the RTX 3090 was $ 2,087, the RX 6800 was $ 865, the RX 6800 XT was $ 1,179 and the RX 6900 XT was $ 1,458.
The card that made the biggest jump in February is the RTX 3060 Ti with a 33% jump in resale price ($ 920). It was followed closely by the RTX 3080 with a jump of 24% ($ 1,593). This was followed by the RX 6800 with an 18% jump ($ 1,018). Right behind him is the RTX 3070 with a jump of 17% ($ 940). Then comes the RX 6800 XT with an 11% jump ($ 1,312). The least impacted was the RX 6900 XT with an 8% jump ($ 1,570). The RTX 3090 may not have had the most significant jump, 14%, but the average resale price is $ 2,379. It can also be renamed Titan RTX for this generation.
All of this can make you feel that a console is a solution, but it is not the case. The consoles are also being staggered. The data we used was only from eBay, but other sites like StockX have also started adding these cards to the market. The time to buy hardware is not now and the scarcity seems to be getting worse. For all consumers who want this hardware, your best bet is to try to refuel.