The only good thing about nightmares, besides that they confront us with our worst fears, is that they all end, although some can last only a few minutes, while others can last much longer. And today, after the numbers that we have been seeing in recent months, we have an official confirmation from NVIDIA that the huge bubble that has formed around the prices of graphics cards can be considered practically over.
Back in August 2020, my colleague Isidro did a very interesting analysis on the evolution of the price of graphics cards in recent generations, a memory exercise that showed us how the prices of top-of-the-range models had tripled. What we could not expect at that time, when the new generation of NVIDIA was about to debut, is that the Bermuda triangle formed by miners, chip shortages and resale was going to make graphics cards disappear from the market, reducing its presence to the minimum expression and multiplying its prices.
In January of last year, after a previous increase, we saw how the prices grew again, and the escalation reached a ceiling, when to get a new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30, if you could find one, could cost approximately 318% of its manufacturer’s recommended price. With the AMD RX 6000 series the difference was less, with an average price of 216%, which was still more than double. It coincided, and it is not by chance, with the price peak of several cryptocurrencies.
We start 2022, however, with good news in this regard, since after a huge shortage, NVIDIA managed to get a good shipment of GeForce RTX 30 to the market, thus improving its global availability and, since then, we have seen how availability and prices have followed the path of normalization. However, and although it seemed clear that the graphics card market was finally returning to normal, we still did not have an official reading of the situation.
Well, the wait is over, as NVIDIA, with Restocked & Reloaded, provides the extra peace of mind that many users expectedlistening to a voice from the sector, confirming that what we are experiencing now is not a mirage, but the arrival of the expected normalization, with prices that are finally in line with what was proposed back in 2020, before the situation Will trigger.
Thus, as an example of this, NVIDIA puts some examples of graphics cards widely available in the marketindicating the distributors where we can find them, with their prices:
- Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Trinity OC LHR 8GB GDDR6X, can be purchased for €799.89 at Pc Components.
- Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Twin Edge OC LHR 8GB GDDR6, available for €579.89 at Pc Components.
- MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC LHR 12GB GDDR6, now at €449.89 in PC Components.
It seems incredible today, but we must remember that just a few months ago, the price of the cheapest of the three far exceeded that of the most expensive of this selection.
Does this mean that now is the best time to buy a new graphics card? Well the answer is that it depends.. If you have been waiting all this time and the need is urgent, without a doubt you can encourage yourself to do so. However, if you are not in a hurry, keep in mind that soon, in all three cases in this same 2022, the new Intel graphics cards will arrive, and the new generations of NVIDIA and AMD, so it is possible that we will still see some further improve their prices.
