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Bitcoin Bloodbath Brings Cheer to Gamers as Graphics Card Prices Plummet

btarunr

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Bitcoin, along with most cryptocurrencies are going through a cycle of devaluation. They may rebound in the future, but for now it means that crypto miners will halt purchases of graphics cards, and possibly even sell what they have, to raise capital for next-generation GPU purchases (late-2022). What this means is a flooding of the market with used graphics cards, which will put tremendous pressure on graphics card manufacturers to lower prices. It's also a means for NVIDIA and AMD to clear out their current-generation inventory, to make room for the next-gen. The inflection of all these factors brings cheer to PC gamers, who can finally have an NVIDIA "Ampere" or AMD RDNA2 graphics card at prices that are either at or below MSRP (launch prices).

Bitcoin has crashed nearly 60%, from its November 2021 price of 65,000 USD, to 27,150, as of this writing. This will have a direct impact on the economics of mining cryptocurrencies using power-hungry high-end graphics cards. Those with mining farms will look to stop mining, and possibly get rid of some of their graphics cards while their market-value are still at an acceptable level. The competition between pre-owned graphics cards and brand-new ones from the market, will bring down prices of both.



NVIDIA recently announced the "Restocked and Reloaded" marketing campaign, where the company is reaching out to gamers, telling them that their RTX 30-series cards are back in stock, at MSRP pricing. AMD, on the other hand, has refreshed its RX 6000 series product stack with three new SKUs, signaling gamers that it has new hardware on the shelves.

An AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT can be had for as low as $899, which is also the price for the cheapest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080. The cheapest RTX 3060 Ti is $529, while the cheapest RX 6700 XT is $498. The cheapest RX 6600 XT is at $399, while the cheapest RTX 3060 is going for $419. Rejoice!

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Cool for countries where prices do drop i guess. Here in the Netherlands the prices are rising again, 3060 Ti going for €890 again.
 
3060ti isn't going for 890 again, and I honestly don't see why it would either. Time isn't kind on these prices as we inch towards new releases.

Still way too much though for this class of card.

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3060ti isn't going for 890 again, and I honestly don't see why it would either. Time isn't kind on these prices as we inch towards new releases.

Still way too much though for this class of card.

View attachment 247118
Exactly, rejoice at the fact that cards are still about 50% more expensive than what they should be, and compared to previous gens, i think not.
 
I don't understand how Nvidia cards are still so expensive. They use the samsung process that is way cheaper than TSMC and it still WAY overpriced... Compared to AMD cards.
 
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3060ti isn't going for 890 again, and I honestly don't see why it would either. Time isn't kind on these prices as we inch towards new releases.

Still way too much though for this class of card.

View attachment 247118
The card i would want is, Asus Rog Strix RTX 3060 Ti.

Anything else is a garbage noisy 2 slot design, except the MSI Trio, but it has LEDs on the PCB, screw that.
 
The card i would want is, Asus Rog Strix RTX 3060 Ti.

Anything else is a garbage noisy 2 slot design, except the MSI Trio, but it has LEDs on the PCB, screw that.
Ah gotcha.

Well, honestly, the reason 2 slot designs are garbage is not because of the shrouds on it, but the chip under it, which is way too power hungry at this tier. Ampere to be fair is really not that fantastic if you need massive coolers at bottom midrange, I mean how did that happen... I'm looking at a 225W TDP 2 slot x80 here...
 
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3060ti isn't going for 890 again, and I honestly don't see why it would either. Time isn't kind on these prices as we inch towards new releases.

Still way too much though for this class of card.

View attachment 247118
The problem is Tweakers to be honest, it is so powerful that I believe webshops configure their pricing algorithms to never go below a certain floor correlated to Tweakers tracking.. this helps them not to undercut the market so price changes are glacial slow here.
 
The problem is Tweakers to be honest, it is so powerful that I believe webshops configure their pricing algorithms to never go below a certain floor correlated to Tweakers tracking.. this helps them not to undercut the market so price changes are glacial slow here.
Yeah you don't really want to go through their Pricewatch anymore. Its a good indicator but not necessarily the best place to buy :D The place has become a commercialized shithole unfortunately.
 
Ah gotcha.

Well, honestly, the reason 2 slot designs are garbage is not because of the shrouds on it, but the chip under it, which is way too power hungry at this tier. Ampere to be fair is really not that fantastic if you need massive coolers at bottom midrange, I mean how did that happen... I'm looking at a 225W TDP 2 slot x80 here...

With 3060ti You get slighly more performance than 2080 Super with ~80% of it's power draw - is it really that bad? I don't expect such results with the upcoming Ada.

The problem is Tweakers to be honest, it is so powerful that I believe webshops configure their pricing algorithms to never go below a certain floor correlated to Tweakers tracking.. this helps them not to undercut the market so price changes are glacial slow here.

What really dropped the prices last time few years ago was a flood of used cards from the mining rigs on ebay and other auction sites.
 
This will have a direct impact on the economics of mining cryptocurrencies using power-hungry high-end graphics cards.
Ethereum's crash might. Bitcoin has no relation whatsoever though. Funny how it gets the credit anyways.
dont buy any of it, screw them
That's going to hurt you more than it hurts them honestly.
 
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The card i would want is, Asus Rog Strix RTX 3060 Ti.

Anything else is a garbage noisy 2 slot design, except the MSI Trio, but it has LEDs on the PCB, screw that.
2 fans are fine for 200-220W GPUs. Heatsink is way more important than the number of fans. I've used a 3060Ti FE and even that wasn't really noisy.

Buying expensive midrange cards never makes sense when you can just buy a higher end card for the same money. Like you can almost get a 3080 for the price of the Strix. The reason the Strix is rising again is because it just seems EOL as there's no market for it. There's only one store selling it with no immediate stock.
 
I simply refuse to by a video card in this era. Yes, my Kepler limits me in what I can play, but I simply don’t care. I’m willing to wait, say, 3-5 years for sanity, and if it doesn’t come, I’ll be content to continue to play lightweight, often indie games.
 
Good news at last. Soon I might finally be able to upgrade my "temporary" RTX 2080 SUPER that I bought over two years ago. Gonna wait for the 4000 series now anyway.

For the record, it's a damned good card (see specs) but I wanted the 3000 series at the time and was just waiting for it to be released. Then it all went south.
 
Ethereum's crash might. Bitcoin has no relation whatsoever though. Funny how it gets the credit anyways.

Nicehash pays you in BTC, of course it matters.
 
It's funny you think reduced GPU prices don't help miners.
 
Nicehash pays you in BTC, of course it matters.
That doesn't matter. If only BTC crashed then you'd just get more BTC for your hashing power and your earnings would stay the same.

Edit: besides NH is just a small and insignificant fraction of the mining market. It's for the noobs basically.
 
I don't want a 2 slot card, it needs atleast 2 slot heatsink when deshrouded, else there isn't enough surface area for it to be quiet.

Ideally i want a ASUS x Noctua 3070, but not the shit brown tint.

2 fans are fine for 200-220W GPUs. Heatsink is way more important than the number of fans. I've used a 3060Ti FE and even that wasn't really noisy.

Buying expensive midrange cards never makes sense when you can just buy a higher end card for the same money. Like you can almost get a 3080 for the price of the Strix. The reason the Strix is rising again is because it just seems EOL as there's no market for it. There's only one store selling it with no immediate stock.
What isn't noisy for you may be noisy for me.

Just to give you an idea. I can hear the Noctua NF-A12x25 above 900 RPM and the NF-A14 above 750 RPM.

So yeah, modern cards with those shit 10MM thick fans will be noisy for me, especially since they run at 1500 RPM+.

I need a Strix and deshroud it with 25mm think fans. I will most likely end up with a RTX 4060, seeing the RTX 3070 is rated at 300 watts, and i want to stay below 250 watts.
 
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A weekend of celebration at last.
 
That doesn't matter. If only BTC crashed then you'd just get more BTC for your hashing power and your earnings would stay the same.

Except it is never the case that only BTC crashes, they're all corelated, if BTC crashes you get paid less.

Edit: besides NH is just a small and insignificant fraction of the mining market. It's for the noobs basically.

NH claims they have over a million active workers every day, that's at least a dozen million graphics cards in use for mining. It's not insignificant.
 
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I don't want a 2 slot card, it needs atleast 2 slot heatsink when deshrouded, else there isn't enough surface area for it to be quiet.

Ideally i want a ASUS x Noctua 3070, but not the shit brown tint.


What isn't noisy for you may be noisy for me.

Just to give you an idea. I can hear the Noctua NF-A12x25 above 900 RPM and the NF-A14 above 750 RPM.

So yeah, modern cards with those shit 10MM thick fans will be noisy for me, especially since they run at 1500 RPM+.

I need a Strix and deshroud it with 25mm think fans. I will most likely end up with a RTX 4060, seeing the RTX 3070 is rated at 300 watts, and i want to stay below 250 watts.
Want some really quiet setup? Build a custom LC loop in Your basement with a brass circulator pump and a huge radiator and connect it using pipes to the PC room. Cool the whole motherboard, CPU, GPU, PSU, SSD (and other 3-letter stuff) with waterblocks and have a completely fanless, silent design.
 
GPUs becoming affordable is nice, but you've already had me at "Bitcoin bloodbath."
 
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