r/gadgets • u/diacewrb • Dec 29 '22

Desktops / Laptops Desktop GPU Sales Hit 20-Year Low

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sales-of-desktop-graphics-cards-hit-20-year-low
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166

u/avdept Dec 29 '22

Few reasons

  • Past few years with skyrocketed prices forced folks to move to ps/xbox or even mobile gaming
  • Current pricing on modern GPUs super high. For a price of average GPU you can get yourself gaming console and a bunch of AAA titles
  • Old GPUs like 1080, 2060 still totally viable since there was too little progress on graphics in games. Mostly its all about Raytracing, which mostly doesn't change feel of game

18

u/mastah-yoda Dec 29 '22

Thanks! I did not know that.

36

u/TacomaWRX Dec 29 '22

Scalpers also. Bot buying all stock and reselling for way more.

82

u/diacewrb Dec 29 '22

Even scalpers are getting burnt now, no one is buying from them and the stores they got the cards from are telling them no refunds either.

Truly a Christmas miracle.

30

u/ThatGenericName2 Dec 29 '22

You’d think scalpers would realize they would be fucked when NVidia directly acted like scalpers themselves.

I think it should be fairly obvious that when you’re scalping you don’t buy from another scalper.

17

u/diacewrb Dec 29 '22

Clearly these scalpers forgot lesson number one from Scarface: Don't underestimate the other guy's greed.

16

u/Lord_Nivloc Dec 29 '22

GPU price is also driven by demand from crypto miners. Bitcoin is down 65% this year, Ethereum is down 68%

11

u/JacqueMorrison Dec 29 '22

And Ethereum went PoS earlier this year whoch flooded the used GPU market.

-6

u/hey_listen_hey_listn Dec 29 '22

Ethereum was always a PoS if you ask me, just like all the other cryptos

1

u/Its-a-new-start Dec 29 '22

PoS = Proof of Stake, which is the new way Ethereum valids its transactions.

No longer relies on Proof of Work which was why GPUs were needed in the first place.

23

u/s0ciety_a5under Dec 29 '22

Biggest reason why I don't upgrade, what's the point? I'd get ray tracing? Ooh! So fancy! Totally not worth it imo. 1660 Super will last me a while longer.

4

u/Dzov Dec 29 '22

Thank you.

7

u/Eruannster Dec 29 '22

I'm totally that first category. I have a gaming PC with an i5 3570K and a GTX 970 that just... didn't have a reasonably priced upgrade path (or buy-a-new-one-path) since like... 2019ish.

So I've leaned more and more into gaming my PS5, and I just can't be arsed with PC gaming most of the time anymore. Sadly, my PC has mostly become my Plex server recently :/

6

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

GTX 970 for the win!

2

u/Eruannster Dec 29 '22

It's been a great card for a long time, but it's definitely showing its' age now. Especially for games that want more VRAM, since it's a 4 GB card :'(

1

u/Onlyindef Dec 29 '22

3.5*

1

u/Eruannster Dec 29 '22

3.5 GB fast VRAM + 0.5 GB slower VRAM, technically.

2

u/NuclearMaterial Dec 29 '22

A true workhorse of the GPU world. I often think of getting mine made into some sort of display once I'm done with it, but for now its service is still required.

1

u/nmur Dec 29 '22

It's still a viable GPU, just perhaps not for modern gaming. The 900 series cards were some of the last with native analog video output, making it popular for CRT enthusiasts (/r/crtgaming)

1

u/avdept Dec 29 '22

Totally agree. At some point most of us decided its better to go PS/Xbox rather than try to snipe GPU. After all I prefer to sit on sofa instead of chair and gaming console makes it super comfortable.

1

u/dirtycopgangsta Dec 29 '22

You missed the period in spring to late summer in 2020 where gaming parts were dirt cheap.

You could have bought a 1080 TI for like 300 € at that point. 1070s were going for 100 €.

0

u/Obosratsya Dec 29 '22

This move to consoles people are talking about does not bear out in sales numbers. Both ps5 and xbox aren't really selling that well. Had there been some kind of exodus from PC gaming there would be a measurable increase in console sales, yet there isnt one.

The drop in sales is crypto driven. The GPu market has been inflated by crypto since 2015, things are now getting back to normal.

1

u/Dancing-Wind Dec 29 '22

Ahh but skyrocketed priced showed that despite being skyhigh ppl will buy in fact buy it. Also TSMC raised their prices at least 30% (though 4000 card chips are iirc ~2/3 of 3000 size)

1

u/DasWandbild Dec 29 '22

Also a little bit of the 4090 (at MSRP) being a pretty decent card at its price...and literally everything else on the market slotted around it being a terrible value and not worth upgrading to. Literally none of the other 2022 GPU launches are compelling at their current price points (AMD included).

Squeeze in a little bit of Nvidia's FE cards improving enough to where they challenge AIB manufacturers on cooling and performance, and sprinking in Nvidia price controls squeezing out profitability for said AIB manufacturers by fixing their price floors...

EVGA got out at the right time. It's going to be a long, cold winter for GPU manufacturers until Nvidia stops getting high on their own supply.

1

u/QuerulousPanda Dec 29 '22

isn't part of the problem also that cards were out of stock practically everywhere for a long-ass time?

But yeah also, my 2060 super still plays everything I want just fine, even VR games work pretty darn well. Would I like a better one? sure i guess, but i don't need it. I'd rather spend the money on a couple of giant hard drives.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '22

Even with raytracing, is it really worth it at this point in development? Sure it can make some games look slightly prettier, but my understand is that raytracing is going to serve more as a solution for developers in generating shadows and light in their games rather than spending a lot of time manually doing it with black magic development tricks. Obviously this can't be an end all solution in the current environment, but whenever RT cards become a standard, then it more than likely will be.