Graphics cards are the cheapest they've been in years

Graphics cards are the cheapest they've been in years

It's about time we caught a break. After years of GPU prices being over inflated, sometimes as much as 300% of the card's original MSRP, they've finally fallen and fallen hard. Now are they not only reaching their intended launch prices, but some have fallen below them, with the average AMD Radeon RX 6000 GPUs now priced at 14% cheaper than MSRP, and the average RTX 3000 series cards now sitting at 9% under MSRP.

This is a huge change from last year, or even the start of this one, where the cryptocurrency boom and serious demand had driven up prices of GPUs to unprecedented levels. You couldn't buy anything at a normal price, even old cards like the GTX 1060 were going for hundred of dollars. This writer sold his 5700 XT on ebay for close to $1,000, and if you even had a 3000 series GPU you were basically playing with a unicorn.

But today that's different. You can now grab a 6950XT for around $1,000, an RTX 3090 Ti for just $1,400, or an RTX 3070 Ti for $680. Even the low end cards now have actual low end prices, like the RX 6400 selling for around $160, and the RTX 3050 for $300 -- ish.

Some of the prices aren't great, with Nvidia GPUs still overpriced in most segments, especially popular GPUs like the RTX 3080 and 3060 Ti, but overall GPUs are cheaper now than they've been in a long, long time.

This may not last though. While it's tempting to wait for the RTX 4000 and RX 7000 cards, they will be expensive and dwindling stock of the older GPUs will drive their prices up in turn, even if there will be a sudden dump of older cards on ebay and classified ads shortly after the new gen launches.

Have you picked up a new card recently, or are you still saving and waiting?