Predictions on when GPUs will be back at RRP.

[Percy1983]

So I current have a Vega56 which I bought used for £205 in October 2019

They are now selling for £410-£520 for my model so I am thinking of selling.

I do have an R9 290 spare (blower cooler ) which I can use.

My pc is mostly for work (photography/videography) with 2 UHD monitors, looking at the outputs will have to use HDMI for one monitor so I guess I would be limited to 30hz (not a huge problem as its used for previews etc. Of course there would be a drop in gaming performance.

So my plan sell, use 290, buy newer card with sale money when I can and have a nice upgrade (5700xt/6700xt hopefully).

Its just how long will I be running at a reduced spec for? is this a sensible plan? will prices ever come back down?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

When the current mining boom ends??

[Scryder]

I got my 1070 over 3 years ago... and I was looking at the price recently. It was still high back then.
@CAT-THE-FIFTH is correct. As long as demand outstrips supply, they'll stay high for the foreseeable future.

[kalniel]

I think it's more substrate availability than miners - even dumb chips for cars are affected at the moment. So I think covid recovery + time for things to get back up to speed and prices return to RRP. Jan 2022 probably.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The OP wasn't talking so much about availability but prices. Lots of other computing parts are also affected by production problems,but pricing hasn't shot up anywhere as much. The RRPs AMD and Nvidia would have taken into consideration the issues to some degree.Even AMD who is using a lot of its 7NM wafers for consoles. The current pricing issues are exclusively down to miners,because they are willing to spend upto 2 times the RRP for GPUs,sometimes more.

For example early last year,Covid and many people needing to buy new PCs, caused all sorts of shortages and GPU and CPU prices did go up,but nowhere as much as compared to now. This is with China and Taiwan essentially shutting down for months.

We are seeing exactly the same GP shortages we saw in 2017/2018 and even years before when miners got involved. The same excessive increases in GPU pricing. For example even an RX470 4GB would sell for nearly £300 in the last mining boom,and RX480 GPUs for well over £300.

There was no shortages or production problems back then,but exactly the same behaviour is seen. These guys are now buying up gaming laptops to mine on!

If there was no miners willing to spend so much money,and bulk order GPUs and laptops directly from companies,there would be much more retail supply and more importantly much closer to RRPs. Remember,in the scheme of things retail GPU sales are probably not the bulk of all GPU sales I suspect,and prebuilt systems have more of them.

The GPUs are being priced for miners who want to buy at that price,and the few very desperate gamers.

You can see this as prebuilt PCs and laptops from companies such as Dell don't seem to have anywhere as much of an issue with dGPUs,because these are sold to them at certain prices in bulk order contracts. Hence it makes more sense to buy a prebuilt desktop or gaming laptop now,if you want to do a full system upgrade.

Edit!!

An example - my mate got their AIB RTX3060 for £420ish,just as mining was taking off which was £20 more than the RRP. This was a few days before Christmas.

Miners now will pay upto £1000 for an RTX3060TI.

[kompukare]

When the current mining boom ends??

There a few factors here. We tend to only thing of crypto prices, but as more people rush in (in a gold rush, is selling pickaxes the best path to success?) then the difficulty goes up. Some (most?) coins also taper off the rewards so each block gets smaller.
Point being, even if prices don't collapse again soon (but long term I am sure they will), the increased difficulty will make mining less profitable.
This is an ETH difficulty chart:

And this is the network total hash rate:

So the millions of new GPUs (and old GPUs which previously weren't mining) have basically made everything more difficult.
The third chart would be the prices, but long before the crash the increased difficulty will make it unprofitable at least for anyone who has to pay for power (or isn't using the heat to heat their house in winter but the northern hemisphere's winter is finished).

Not that I'm willing to offer any prediction!

[Percy1983]

I suppose its what are the odds of getting one against the scalpers and miners as cards are being made and having £450 to play with will get something better than my vega56 eventually.

Funnily enough I built a PC for someone the end of last year and got a new 5600xt for £205.

Even the RX580s are £200+ right now.

Installed the R9 290 to test and seems I have to down clock the memory to keep it stable which is worrying. Looking wider I could get an NVS 510 for around £30 which will keep my displays going for work.

[Ttaskmaster]

They won't ever be back at RRP.
The RRP might go up, to make the situation seem more normal, but prices won't go down and especially not when everyone is still comparatively penniless.

[Zhaoman]

If I were you I'd secure myself a new card before selling. There's no guarantee the prices will ever come down. At least that's what I did.

[DanceswithUnix]

Not that I'm willing to offer any prediction!

Well, quite, I don't think logic has ever had anything to do with cryptocurrency. People seem to be throwing huge amounts of money at this, with comments that they think they can get 70% of their money back if they need to sell their rig.

The headline of what one Eth is worth is still around the top of the spike a couple of years ago, and it took seemingly forever for cards to come back into circulation when that spike ended.

[Percy1983]

Well I am doing it, got the 290 working fully and its actually a decent card when completely unrestricted.

Testing gaming and had acceptable levels of turning settings down (to be expected)
Tested productivity, all seems fine seems my 3700x is taking up a bit more slack as such second monitor at 30htz isn't a huge issue.

Seems my Vega56 is on the higher end of the value brackets due to Samsung HBM2 and I have just got it in on a £1 final total fee on ebay.

So I am going with a reasonable gamble that in the next 12 months I will be able to get a better or newer equivalent card for £450-£500.

Interestingly I don't appear to have paid for a graphics card since my 290x

Bought a 290x for £189.99 and sold it later for £220.00 due to miners, got an rx580 for £210, sold it for £230 due to miners, got the the Vega56 for £205, now selling due to miners. No huge profits along the the way but to say in each case I have used the card for years and then got all my money back I am not doing too badly.

Will have to look into bots, if I can snag a 6700 or 6700xt within budget all will be good, is it wrong to use bots if you actually want to keep the item?

[DanceswithUnix]

That's quite a price. It is only a few weeks ago I threw away the original packaging for my Vega 56 which I found cluttering up the garage, am starting to wonder if I did the right thing there

[JahRule]

12 months for lesser cards (from a Miner view) say 3060 and 3070, 18-24 months for 306ti and 3080s....

That's quite a price. It is only a few weeks ago I threw away the original packaging for my Vega 56 which I found cluttering up the garage, am starting to wonder if I did the right thing there

I have a Vega 64 and am wondering if I should swap out to a 3060 card

[kompukare]

That's quite a price. It is only a few weeks ago I threw away the original packaging for my Vega 56 which I found cluttering up the garage, am starting to wonder if I did the right thing there

With the current crazy, even a perfectly described box for a graphic might attract crazy bids although I suspect they tend to end up in ebay disputes afterwards.

Wonder if I should sell my 1GB 260X, might actually get something for it and the onboard HD4000 isn't that much slower...

[Percy1983]

Interesting what AMD are saying about the 6700xt and stock and distribution, definitely worth a shot.

Already got an offer on my listing of £475.00

[DanceswithUnix]

With the current crazy, even a perfectly described box for a graphic might attract crazy bids although I suspect they tend to end up in ebay disputes afterwards.

Wonder if I should sell my 1GB 260X, might actually get something for it and the onboard HD4000 isn't that much slower...

lol, was actually intending to include the graphics card in the box, but perhaps I'm just too honest

Just thought in the original packaging it might be able to sell for more. But I'll probably just keep hold of it.