GPU Prices 2023: July Update

Below is the GPU pricing data for March, written in early April and not updated since then.

GPU prices continued to fall in March, and we're even starting to see cards in stock at somewhat reasonable prices at many online stores. Newegg for example has basically stopped doing its GPU bundles (at least for now), and you can find cards like this GeForce RTX 3080 for $1,000. No, that's not as low as Nvidia's $699 theoretical starting price, but it's actually cheaper than buying a card from eBay, which is great to see. Once again, every single GPU we checked on eBay dropped in price, by 12.5% if we include all cards from the prior two generations of hardware. Perhaps even better, the volume of cards sold increased month over month, which is another indication of improving supplies.

GPU prices tend to track with the profitability of cryptocurrency mining, which also tracks with cryptocurrency prices. Over the month of March, Bitcoin was a bit more stable than we've seen in the recent past, and even showed a slight upward trend. It started around the $43,000 mark, dropped as low as $37,000 over the next two weeks, and then climbed back to nearly $45,000 by the end of the month. Similarly, Ethereum started around the $2,900 price, dropped to a low of $2,500 over the next two weeks, and then climbed back to nearly $3,250 by the end of the month. Despite ending the month on a relative high note, however, mining profitability hasn't improved much and graphics cards continued to go down in price.

Here's a look back at the month of March 2022. Note that February only had 28 days, compared to 31 for March, but we take the whole month's worth of data regardless. Also, we've switched to using performance data from our updated 2022 GPU benchmarks hierarchy, so the FPS/$ figures have dropped compared to previous months.

Month to month, every GPU is down in pricing, most by 10% or more. Of course, the RTX 3090 Ti just arrived, and with only three days of sales we wouldn't put too much stock in the listed eBay price. In fact, multiple retailers seem to have inventory of the 3090 Ti available, at far more attractive prices — matching or beating the eBay RTX 3090 price in some cases. Clearly, some people haven't gotten the memo about dropping GPU prices — even Amazon has at least one RTX 3090 Ti listed as in stock (though it "ships in 3–5 days").

Compared to February data, the latest generation GPUs dropped 12.1% in price on average. Individually, the GPUs dropped in average price by at least 9% (RTX 3050 and RTX 3060), with every other GPU posting double digit percentage decreases. Also of note is that all of AMD's GPUs now show an average markup vs. the MSRP of less than 53%, with the RX 6600 and RX 6500 XT only costing about 20% more than MSRP.

Overall, the average eBay selling price for a GPU in March was $983, compared to $1,094 in January. That's an average 10% decrease in price, with AMD posting a more impressive 13% drop compared to Nvidia's 9% dip. More inexpensive cards were produced and sold as well, with the RX 6700 XT as an example falling 18% in price with unit sales going up 43%. The RX 6600 XT also sold 52% more cards (on eBay) compared to last month.

The total number of cards sold on eBay was pretty static compared to February (10,983 vs. 10,889), but the ratio skewed more toward AMD this month. Nvidia still outsold AMD by 4.6 to 1, but it was 5.9 to 1 in February. There were a few more days in March, so daily unit sales were down slightly, but things are definitely improving.

AMD's RX 6700 XT, RX 6600 XT, and RX 6600 continue to offer the best bang for the buck in terms of FPS/$, ranging from 0.166 on the RX 6600 to 0.148 on the RX 6700 XT. The best Nvidia can do is only 0.123 with the RTX 3050, though we're not factoring in DLSS or DXR performance in the above figures.

Graphics Cards Available at Retail

Looking outside of eBay, again we note that multiple stores are now carrying inventory on current gen GPUs, often at better than eBay prices. Here's the quick rundown of a few of the 'better' deals, though we expect the downward trend in GPU prices to continue throughout 2022.

• EVGA RTX 3090 Ti for $1,999.99 at EVGA
• MSI RTX 3090 for $1,679.99 at Newegg
• MSI RTX 3080 Ti for $1,269.99 at Newegg
• EVGA RTX 3080 12GB for $1,107.94 at Amazon
• EVGA RTX 3080 10GB for $919.99 at EVGA
• EVGA RTX 3070 Ti for $759.99 at EVGA
• Gigabyte RTX 3070 for $729.99 at Newegg
• MSI RTX 3060 Ti for $579.99 at Newegg
• PNY RTX 3060 for $488.99 at Amazon
• EVGA RTX 3050 for $249.99 at EVGA
• MSI RX 6900 XT for $1,019.99 at Newegg
• Sapphire RX 6800 XT for $859.00 at Newegg
• ASRock RX 6800 for $799.99 at Newegg
• ASRock RX 6700 XT for $528.99 at Newegg
• XFX RX 6600 XT for $429.99 at Newegg
• ASRock RX 6600 for $335.99 at Newegg
• PowerColor RX 6500 XT for $199.99 at Amazon
• XFX RX 6400 for $179.99 at Newegg

You'll note that nearly all of those come via Newegg, which lost a lot of good will with its Shuffle program over the past year. The majority of the Nvidia cards are also Gigabyte and MSI models, while ASRock nearly sweeps the AMD category. Not surprisingly, all three of those companies were purportedly selling a lot of GPUs direct to mining farms during the past year — google Ethereum mining farms and look at how many GPUs are all apparently the same model and brand.

Anyway, with miners showing less interest in expanding right now, it's good news for gamers looking to upgrade their PCs. Or at least, it would have been good news a year ago. Now that Nvidia's Ada architecture and AMD's RDNA3 are both supposed to be coming out later this year, buying hardware that launched in 2020 may not be quite so enticing, especially considering prices are still inflated by 20% or more.

GPU prices on previous generation cards fell a slightly larger 12.8% on average, though again we're seeing most of the cards in the double digits — the RTX 2080 series (2080 Ti and 2080 Super included) didn't drop quite as much as the others. That's probably because they at least cost less than their launch MSRPs, which isn't the case with the rest of the previous gen GPUs. Also of interest is that unit sales for Turing and RDNA cards increased 20% month over month, likely because a bunch of mining farms are clearly out inventory.

Which brings up an interesting topic: Should you buy a used graphics card? We'll be updating that advice soon, but basically: no, unless you really know what you're in for, you're okay with the risk, and you're getting a decent price. Even the cheapest of these previous gen cards still cost over $200, so they're not great budget options, but they're getting better.

We're not going to look at non-eBay prices for all of the previous gen offerings, but the GTX 16-series cards are still considered "current" for the budget and midrange sectors, so let's at least check out prices there.

• Asus GTX 1660 Ti for $359.99 at Newegg
• MSI GTX 1660 Super for $359.99 at Amazon
• Asus GTX 1660 GDDR5 for $339.99 at Newegg (not a good choice)
• MSI GTX 1650 Super for $349.00 at Amazon (a terrible choice)
• Asus GTX 1650 GDDR6 for $219.99 at Newegg (possibly the best choice)
• Asus GTX 1650 GDDR5 for $229.99 at Newegg (get the GDDR6 model)

These "budget" cards are still pretty screwed up in pricing, and you'll generally be better served by purchasing a latest generation GPU from above. Keep in mind that even the "too slow" RX 6500 XT is faster than the GTX 1650, and the RX 6600 easily outperforms the GTX 1660 Super, by about 50%! The GTX 1650 GDDR6 at $220 is really the only card in this bunch that might be worth considering.

GPU Prices Summary: Express Train to Down Town

There are a multitude of factors that caused the massive spike in GPU prices that we've seen over the past 18 months. The pandemic disrupted the supply chain, more people were at home and apparently wanted to upgrade their gaming PCs, and cryptocurrency miners came in droves. Thankfully, it looks like all of those trends are abating.

Based on the latest reports, the overall supply of graphics cards on the market has improved substantially over the past months. It's also likely that miners — both institutional miners as well as hobbyists — are toning down their purchases. Add in the pending summer months in the northern hemisphere, when temperatures rise and AC costs could further cut into profits, plus the pending Ethereum proof of stake transition, and we suspect backroom deals where millions of GPUs ended up going straight to mining farms are no longer happening, and certainly not at the eye watering prices of last year.

We also have strong rumors indicating both AMD and Nvidia will release their next-generation RDNA 3 and Ada architectures later this year, and Intel has officially launched Arc mobile and will be releasing desktop cards likely in the June timeframe. That means every company in the graphics card industry will want to clear out existing inventory quickly, which can further erode prices.

One interesting corollary to the GPU price trends we've seen is that while eBay is perhaps the easiest place from which to glean data on sales and prices, if things continue down the current path, most people will likely go back to buying from retail outlets, and the scalpers won't have much demand for their offerings. As we noted above, there are already significantly better prices than eBay out there for many of the GPUs.

Take the GeForce RTX 3080 as an example, which remains as our theoretically best overall pick for a modern graphics card. I know of multiple people in the past two weeks that finally got selected from the queue to buy an RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra for $999. The average price for that particular card on eBay is now just $1,172 over the past week. Tack on shipping and taxes, give eBay its 14% cut, and a potential scalper wouldn't be able to turn much of a profit. (Don't let the door hit you on the way out...)

What remains to be seen is just how quickly the remaining price premium evaporates. The average markup (over MSRP) for the current generation GPUs is still 48%. With many of these being custom AIC partner offerings that will inherently cost about 10–20% more than the reference, we're now looking at a 30–40% premium on the most desirable cards. Note also that we've used the entire month of March for this update, but the past week shows even lower prices.

If you've been waiting to upgrade for a couple of years, the end may finally be in sight. Just remember that we're due for another round of new GPUs before the end of 2022, and those could be worth the wait... or they could end up with inflated MSRPs due to the past year of shortages.