One of the most important problems that has affected the price of graphics cards has been, without a doubt, the shortage of semiconductors and other key components for their manufacture. That shortage has generated a notable drop in the level of supplies that reached the retail channel, and that was especially marked during the past month of December.
To the above we must also add the high demand that the graphics card sector has experienced, mainly caused by the boom in cryptocurrency mining, and the impact that speculation and reselling have had. All this has generated the perfect cocktail for prices to skyrocket, and for these to have remained inflated even as stock levels began to timidly improve.
Just a few days ago we saw information that confirmed, precisely, that reality to which we have referred, and that is that despite the increasing availability that the graphics card sector is experiencing, the prices of these do not really drop. This paints us a worrying future that, however, It wouldn’t be as black as it sounds, and we’ll see why.
Improved supplies and new graphics cards on the horizon
A well-known Chinese source has confirmed that the supply of GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards will improve, during this same month of January, by 15%. This represents a considerable growth compared to December, but it will not be enough for supply to return to the levels of November 2021.
However, according to several industry experts, this will be the beginning of the change we all expect, and as of March this year we could start to see the start of a price normalization process of mid-range and high-end graphics cards. The source does not differentiate between models, nor between ranges, so we imagine that it refers to the GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6000.
This is good news, but we must bear in mind that the recovery could end up being very slow. In this sense, I think that everything will depend to a large extent what NVIDIA and AMD do with their next-gen graphics cards, the GeFoorce RTX 40 and Radeon RX 7000, which are scheduled to launch later this year. If these have a good availability, it is probable that the recovery of the sector will take place at a greater rate.
I personally believe that in the worst case prices will start to recover before closing the first half of 2022. I speak of a principle of recovery, and always keeping in mind that speculation and reselling could again do their thing with the Radeon RX 7000 and GeForce RTX 40 if they do not have a really good availability. If this happens, that recovery could be even slower.
