I simply purchased a Nvidia RTX 3070 for MSRP as a result of the GPU scarcity is over

For practically two years, you’ve needed to be extremely fortunate, expert, or affected person to get an Nvidia or AMD graphics card at MSRP. We’ve liveblogged and livetweeted that hell of attempting to purchase a GPU on-line, combating in opposition to a military of bots to navigate the buggy web sites of outlets who didn’t have sufficient cause to care.

However, yesterday, I did the unthinkable. I saddled as much as Finest Purchase’s web site eight hours after the retailer’s weekly drop and acquired an RTX 3070 Ti Founders Version for its $599 MSRP.

I had a $499 RTX 3070 Founders Version in my cart, too. And people finds weren’t a fluke: each of these GPUs had been nonetheless accessible after we checked again this morning. The 3070 FE continues to be there as I kind these phrases. So is the 3070 Ti. AMD.com presently has the Radeon RX 6750 XT, 6900 XT, and 6950 XT in inventory for MSRP, too.

Picture: eBay

I dashed over to eBay to run the numbers — the identical ones I’ve been compiling since December 2020 to point out you the true road worth of a GPU. Certain sufficient, this week is the week the preferred graphics playing cards lastly hit MSRP on the secondhand market as effectively. The RTX 3080 is hovering round $700, the precise worth Nvidia initially stated it might value.

Over the previous six months, the road worth of a contemporary GPU has been chopped in half. Virtually each graphics card we monitor fell by greater than 50 % on eBay since January — 30 % of that since April alone.

It was additionally Nvidia’s hottest and greatest bang in your buck playing cards — the RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 — that noticed the most important dips. Of these playing cards, the 3060 Ti is the one used GPU that can’t be had at or beneath MSRP on common. In the meantime, a median AMD card will value you $100 lower than MSRP.

The secondhand market even appears to be normalizing costs of Nvidia and AMD’s extra overpriced GPUs. You should buy a used 6900 XT for $300 off its $999 MSRP, and I noticed eBay patrons get a median of $318, $466, and $540 off Nvidia’s 3080 Ti, 3090, and 3090 Ti, respectively.

I believe it’s secure to say: the nice GPU scarcity is over.

However do you have to really purchase one? That’s a approach more durable query — as a result of the forces which can be lastly driving provide and demand to satisfy aren’t all in your favor.

Why you may or won’t purchase a GPU proper now

First, let’s state the plain: the chips that energy these GPUs are actually two years previous. In October 2020, $500 may need been an important worth for an RTX 3070, however is it nonetheless an important worth in July 2022 now that new ones are on the best way? The RTX 40 collection and AMD’s RDNA 3 are each anticipated this fall and might provide important efficiency jumps.

That goes double should you’re one of many playing cards that Nvidia and AMD launched later within the GPU scarcity at a better MSRP than their efficiency would recommend. I like to recommend looking at this useful 3DCenter / VideoCardz chart of how a lot GPUs ought to value, normalized in opposition to an RTX 3070.

The age of those GPUs may matter much more should you’re contemplating a used GPU because it may need already been labored for these two years and may need even frolicked doing exhausting labor in a cryptocurrency mining rig.

Reportedly, one huge cause used GPU costs are tanking is as a result of crypto miners are flooding the market with playing cards which can be not worthwhile resulting from the continued crypto crash, the place the full market cap of all crypto property has fallen by two-thirds since its peak of $3 trillion final November. (Miners have been switching away from GPUs for a while, although.)

Whether or not it was used for gaming or mining, possibly purchase domestically or from a website with good purchaser safety — there have been experiences of broken GPUs among the many flood. Should you do get the possibility to check, right here’s a Players Nexus video that may stroll you thru potential crimson flags.

Desire new as an alternative of used? Exterior of my Finest Purchase Founders Version finds, issues aren’t fairly as rosy — since you’re going to need to cope with the need of Nvidia and AMD board companions and retailers to make as a lot cash as doable now that they’ve stock to clear.

In its final earnings name, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress advised that provide had nearly caught as much as demand. “Channel stock has practically normalized, and we anticipate it to stay round these ranges in Q2,” Kress stated. However provide chain sources inform Digitimes (through VideoCardz) that Nvidia and AMD might now even have too many playing cards and are attempting to order fewer new ones from TSMC as a result of they allegedly overestimated demand.

Nvidia has reportedly pushed again its launches of the RTX 4090, 4080, and 4070 to as late as October, November, and December, respectively, in line with Wccftech and VideoCardz, which could imply as we speak’s GPUs gained’t be yesterday’s information for a bit longer. However, which means it may additionally be longer earlier than current-gen RDNA 2 or RTX 30 collection GPUs see a worth minimize.

(Nvidia declined to touch upon whether or not the GPU scarcity is over; I’m ready for remark from AMD.)

Falcodrin, the GPU hunter I profiled final December, tells me that new GPU costs have been in every single place, and it’s not exhausting to seek out proof of that: Finest Purchase is stocking third-party RTX 3060 Ti playing cards that value considerably greater than the extra highly effective RTX 3070 I had in my cart. If you wish to purchase a card with a flowery cooler for twice MSRP, you’ve nonetheless obtained loads of choices as a result of an throughout the board worth drop hasn’t but arrived.

As a substitute of drops, they’re nonetheless attempting to draw clients with gross sales, like EVGA’s anniversary sale as we speak, the place an RTX 3080 may be had for under $80 over MSRP and each the 3080 Ti and 3090 Ti are beneath MSRP.

Picture: Sean Hollister / The Verge

However, should you’re the sort of one that will likely be glad with a current-gen GPU as an alternative of ready for subsequent gen, it appears like these worth cuts could be coming. Seeing how some first-party GPUs may be had at MSRP, EVGA’s gross sales, and that 3DCenter worth index, it’s not exhausting to see room for the remainder of the costs to sink.

That stated, it is dependent upon whether or not avid gamers discover that the costs they had been ready for have lastly returned. Moor Insights & Technique analyst Anshel Sag thinks they’ll. “GPUs will doubtless return to regular ranges as individuals who held off on constructing PCs or shopping for GPUs really begin to construct them, now that costs have come again right down to actuality,” he tells me, including that “There’s a number of pent up demand from precise avid gamers and customers which were holding off for the final two years as a result of chip scarcity, provide chain disruptions and crypto bubble.”

And whereas some individuals are tightening belts resulting from inflation or will watch for next-gen GPU launches this fall, he doesn’t assume they’ll hold avid gamers away. “It’s important to keep in mind that for lots of those customers, that is their main supply of leisure and socialization,” he says, including that many who’d watch for an RTX 40 or RDNA 3 card “perceive that the most recent and biggest can even be so much more durable to get their fingers on than what’s already accessible now.”

However he agrees that the GPU scarcity is now over. The costs communicate for themselves.