Crypto currencies such as Bitcoin – the digital gold – and others like Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and others have soared beyond expectation as investors keep being drawn to it. This trend has pushed a massive interest in mid or high-end graphics, mainly from cryptocurrency miners, but also by companies all around the world for the same reason, investing hundreds of thousands in technology.
As the cryptocurrency prices go up, so do the price of the latest graphics cards, also accompanied by a shortage in retail stock. This stock shortage has also allowed some prices to skyrocket, with some cards now being sold by almost the double of their price, like NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1070, retail price of $380 (depending on the model and store), now being sold for more than $700 (more than 80% increase).
Hard life for gamers
This surges in the graphics card pricing is making life hard for gammers, since as many don’t look at these cards for profit, but for performance and better frame rate, not only the prices have been ramping but also the stock shortages are affecting a wide range of cards.
NVIDIA has advised its retail partners to prioritise gamers, while retailers are only happy with the impressive margins the market momentum is giving them, however, some retailers are limiting purchases so miners can’t buy cards in volume, and some retailers have launched campaigns specifically aimed at gamers, and offering special campaign discounts.
Some of the cards that are known to be suffering from shortages in the last few months:
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
- AMD Radeon RX 570
- AMD Radeon RX 580
- AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
- AMD Radeon RX Vega 64
