China's recent and latest attempt to drive cryptocurrency mining into the ground has had a major effect on the country, by driving many of its biggest miners overseas. For miners hoping not to pay to shift all their GPUs, they've been trying to sell them locally to recoup their costs and that's meant an absolute dump of graphics cards, driving down the price for the ever-popular RTX 3060 to the lowest it's ever been anywhere in the world.
The RTX 3060 was launched in February this year with a suggested retail price of $330. It's never been that price for more than a second, quickly selling out everywhere it's been on sale ever since. That lead to price gouging and rises which found it selling close to $700 at its peak. Now though, second hand cards are seeing prices crashing down in China, with some RTX 3060s selling for as little as $270.
WCCFTech collected a few of these stories together, and showed not only these entry level cards at much more affordable prices, but RTX 3070s, 3080s, and some RX 6000 cards too. There are second-hand RTX 3080s going for $850, RX 6800 XTs for around $670, and even some RTX 3090s for $1,800.
There are also gaming laptops with RTX 3060s under the hood selling for around $1,000 a pop, and many of them to go around.
These cards will be hard to buy in the U.S., though, as import duties won't be pretty. There's also the fact that these cards have been heavily stressed since they were first purchased, so may not have the longest shelf lives — a concern at even these more typical prices. What we can hope for, is that these cards gradually proliferate throughout the world, lowering demand and helping to pull down first second-hand cards, then retail prices too.