Cutting-edge GPUs from AMD and Nvidia are getting cheaper – but not as fast as we’d like #GeekLeap

Present-gen graphics playing cards from AMD and Nvidia – which means RDNA 3 and RTX 4000 fashions – are dropping steadily in worth in response to a few experiences.

In fact, that’s excellent news, and a few retailer costs have really dropped beneath MSRPs in Europe for a few of these current-gen GPUs, though the catch is that others stay stubbornly above their suggest costs. In the meantime within the US, eBay and retailer costs for these Lovelace and RX 7000 GPUs are additionally dropping.

Let’s have a look at Europe first, the place we’ve got a report from Dutch website {Hardware}.data (opens in new tab) (highlighted by VideoCardz (opens in new tab)) which seems to be at retail pricing within the Netherlands in February in comparison with January 2023.

On the Nvidia aspect of the equation, the RTX 4080 dipped in worth by 2.6% in February in comparison with January (these are all going by common promoting costs for the respective months throughout standard retailers), and it’s really now 3.5% underneath the MSRP.

With the RTX 4090, this fell additional, in actual fact by 6.2% in February, however the flagship GPU nonetheless prices on common only a contact greater than its MSRP (0.4% over).

The RTX 4070 Ti, alternatively, proved extra cussed, solely shedding 1.6% of its worth in February, and remaining over 2.6% costlier than its MSRP.

Turning to AMD with the {Hardware}.data figures, each the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT fell closely in February, dropping by 14.4% and eight% respectively in comparison with their retail costs in January. The 7900 XT is now 6.9% underneath its MSRP, however the flagship XTX mannequin stays 6% over its really helpful worth.

Within the US, we’ve got current figures from Tom’s {Hardware} (opens in new tab) which present eBay pricing for the current-gen AMD and Nvidia graphics playing cards dropped significantly on the finish of January.

Month-on-month within the second-hand market, the RTX 4090 was down 6.1% for the common worth on the public sale website, and with the RTX 4080, the drop was even steeper at 8.8%.

As for the RX 7900 XTX, the worth of the flagship noticed a giant slide of 13.4% on the finish of January in comparison with December, whereas the 7900 XT positively plummeted by 25.8%. That’s an enormous fall in a single month.

Tom’s additionally famous that: “We’re eBay particularly [in its latest stats], the place we are able to readily pull info for offered auctions over the previous month, however retail costs are additionally trending down now.”

Evaluation: Worth drops are kicking in – however from frustratingly inflated ranges

Broadly talking, then, it is a welcome improvement. All of us need cheaper cutting-edge GPUs, the issue is that whereas at the very least they’re now coming down in varied markets, they’re solely doing so slowly. And so they’re falling from inflated launch costs which implies that in some circumstances, with new graphics playing cards at retail, they’re nonetheless above the MSRP.

That stated, they aren’t a lot above that really helpful worth, however they’re nonetheless greater than that degree which is way from very best (actually within the case of the 7900 XTX which is 6% over its MSRP within the Netherlands). And certainly with the RTX 4090, we don’t know if we would see that creep up in worth going ahead – rumor has it that Nvidia may reduce manufacturing of this card, making the flagship GPU extra scarce and pushing up pricing (as a tactic to drive RTX 4080 gross sales, or that’s the speculation floated).

We’re seeing larger falls in eBay pricing within the US, a lot larger in actual fact, notably for AMD graphics playing cards, in order that’s a optimistic improvement too – for these prepared to run the dangers of shopping for second-hand, naturally.

General, AMD’s RDNA 3 graphics playing cards are dropping in worth at a significantly quicker price than Nvidia’s Lovelace GPUs.

The present-gen pricing image can be an attention-grabbing one to look at, as a result of to this point, the GPU market doesn’t seem to have taken a lot of a success from the cost-of-living disaster. However in fact, the one graphics playing cards accessible to this point are very costly fashions, and it’s the extra reasonably priced finish of the GPU spectrum – which might not be all that reasonably priced, comparatively talking, this time round – the place we may see extra affect from the tightening of belts.