I just bought a Nvidia RTX 3070 for MSRP because the GPU shortage is over

For almost 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, preventing towards a military of bots to navigate the buggy web sites of shops who didn’t have sufficient purpose to care.

However, yesterday, I did the unthinkable. I saddled as much as Greatest Purchase’s web site eight hours after the retailer’s weekly drop and purchased 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 have been nonetheless accessible once we checked again this morning. The 3070 FE remains to be there as I sort these phrases. So is the 3070 Ti. AMD.com at the moment has the Radeon RX 6750 XT, 6900 XT, and 6950 XT in inventory for MSRP, too.

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

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

It was additionally Nvidia’s hottest and finest bang to your buck playing cards — the RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 — that noticed the largest 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 mean 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 purchase a used 6900 XT for $300 off its $999 MSRP, and I noticed eBay consumers get a mean of $318, $466, and $540 off Nvidia’s 3080 Ti, 3090, and 3090 Ti, respectively.

I believe it’s protected to say: the good GPU scarcity is over.

However do you have to truly purchase one? That’s a manner harder query — as a result of the forces which might be lastly driving provide and demand to satisfy will not be all in your favor.

Why you would possibly or won’t purchase a GPU proper now

First, let’s state the apparent: the chips that energy these GPUs at the moment are two years outdated. In October 2020, $500 might need been an amazing worth for an RTX 3070, however is it nonetheless an amazing worth in July 2022 now that new ones are on the way in which? The RTX 40 sequence and AMD’s RDNA 3 are each anticipated this fall and will provide vital efficiency jumps.

That goes double in the event 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 towards an RTX 3070.

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

Reportedly, one large purpose used GPU costs are tanking is as a result of crypto miners are flooding the market with playing cards which might be now not worthwhile as a result of ongoing 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, perhaps purchase domestically or from a web site with good purchaser safety — there have been stories of broken GPUs among the many flood. In the event you do get the prospect to check, right here’s a Players Nexus video that may stroll you thru potential purple flags.

Favor new as an alternative of used? Outdoors of my Greatest Purchase Founders Version finds, issues aren’t fairly as rosy — since you’re going to must take care of the need of Nvidia and AMD board companions and retailers to make as a lot cash as potential now that they’ve stock to clear.

In its final earnings name, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress recommended that provide had nearly caught as much as demand. “Channel stock has almost normalized, and we anticipate it to stay round these ranges in Q2,” Kress mentioned. However provide chain sources inform Digitimes (through VideoCardz) that Nvidia and AMD could 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 at present’s GPUs received’t be yesterday’s information for a bit longer. However, meaning it may also be longer earlier than current-gen RDNA 2 or RTX 30 sequence 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: Greatest 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 an alternative of drops, they’re nonetheless attempting to draw clients with gross sales, like EVGA’s anniversary sale at present, the place an RTX 3080 could be had for less than $80 over MSRP and each the 3080 Ti and 3090 Ti are beneath MSRP.

Picture: Sean Hollister / The Verge

However, in the event you’re the sort of one who can be happy with a current-gen GPU as an alternative of ready for subsequent gen, it feels like these worth cuts is likely to be coming. Seeing how some first-party GPUs could 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 mentioned, it is dependent upon whether or not avid gamers discover that the costs they have been ready for have lastly returned. Moor Insights & Technique analyst Anshel Sag thinks they are going to. “GPUs will possible return to regular ranges as individuals who held off on constructing PCs or shopping for GPUs truly begin to construct them, now that costs have come again right down to actuality,” he tells me, including that “There’s a whole lot of pent up demand from precise avid gamers and shoppers which were holding off for the final two years as a result of chip scarcity, provide chain disruptions and crypto bubble.”

And whereas some persons are tightening belts resulting from inflation or will look ahead to next-gen GPU launches this fall, he doesn’t assume they’ll hold avid gamers away. “You must do not forget that for lots of those shoppers, that is their major supply of leisure and socialization,” he says, including that many who’d look ahead to an RTX 40 or RDNA 3 card “perceive that the most recent and best may also be rather a lot tougher to get their palms on than what’s already accessible now.”

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