NVIDIA RTX 3000 Prices Keep Dropping, While AMD RX 6000 Gets More Expensive

RJ Pierce, Tech Times 11 August 2021, 02:08 pm

NVIDIA RTX 3000 series graphics cards seem to be constantly dropping in terms of prices, while AMD's RX 6000 lineup prices are getting higher. The prices, however, are mostly centered in Europe.

In a report by NotebookCheck.net, the new Ampere cards from NVIDIA have been dropping in prices from a high of 304% above MSRP back in May 6, to around 144% above MSRP by Aug. 8. On the other hand, AMD cards have been getting more expensive from July 4 up to Aug. 8, going up to 159% over MSRP from the most recent low of 153% in July.

Right now, the average markup of an NVIDIA RTX 3000 card is around 144% above MSRP, which remains a lot, but is still far better from the insane highs that pricing reached during the first half of 2021.

The information comes from the German language site 3DCenter, which tracked the data over the year so far. It showed that the entire NVIDIA RTX 3000 series product stack experienced constant price drops. The two biggest price reductions involved the RTX 3080 and RTX 3060, whose average street prices dropped 60% and 67% percent, respectively.

As for AMD's RX 6000 series, there's been nothing but price hikes all across the product stack. The RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT are the most affected of the bunch, with massive 81% and 78% price hikes. The recently benchmarked RX 6600 XT is not here yet, however, though perhaps it's only a matter of time.

NVIDIA RTX Price Drops: Does This Mean People Will Be Able To Buy Now?

The short answer is still not yet. So for now, hold the money that you've saved for that sweet, new RTX card.

Street pricing is still pretty bad on the new NVIDIA cards, and there's no hiding it. Going back to 3DCenter's data, the average markup is still 144% above MSRP. You'll still have to pay almost double the price of computer hardware whose value will depreciate, especially with the rumored arrival of the RTX 4000 series next year.

Would you spend that much money on a GPU that won't even be top of the line anymore in a year? Perhaps not. The same thing goes for AMD and its current-generation RDNA2 GPUs.

As for whether the price drops will continue until the end of the year, there's not much optimism there, either. Sure, NVIDIA and AMD might be trying their best to ramp up production, but the new semiconductor fabs aren't even operational yet. These two companies are customers of TSMC, and not even the biggest chip maker in the world is still able to keep up with the sky-high demand for graphics cards these days.

NVIDIA cards dropping in prices are a good sign, but you'll have to wait until the trend stands so you can be sure.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by RJ Pierce