It’s no secret that GeForce users have had to pay higher premiums in order to reap the rewards of NVIDIA’s faster Ampere generation, but how much more money has the average person been willing to spend for a GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics card, exactly?
That figure has become a bit clearer courtesy of green team’s latest Investors Day presentation, which includes a slide indicating that GeForce gamers have had to tolerate spending hundreds of dollars more on average to upgrade to the Ampere architecture—$300, to be precise.
“Yay!” say NVIDIA’s investors. “Yikes!” say gamers, DIYers, and other general enthusiasts who have had to accept the fact that the good old days of being able to score a relatively fantastic graphics card for a similar amount is now completely over. Remember how the GeForce GTX 1070 launched at $379? NVIDIA definitely didn’t, as the GeForce RTX 3070 came right out of the gate at $499, a premium that only became worse following shortages and scalping.
Nvidia: Gamers Are Spending $300 More to Buy RTX 3000 Cards Over Prior GPUs (PCMag)
On Tuesday, Nvidia held an investors day, where it revealed an interesting tidbit about the current-generation RTX 3000 graphics cards. “Looking into the millions of desktop GeForce gamers who we know have upgraded their GPU to a 30-series, they are buying up,” Nvidia SVP Jeff Fisher said during the event.
Fisher made the statement while touting the growth Nvidia is experiencing in the gaming market. The higher spending is certainly good news for the company, but not so much for consumers looking to own a graphics card at an affordable price.
The starting prices for Nvidia’s products have also changed over the years. Back in 2016, the GeForce GTX 1070 originally launched for $379. Meanwhile, the current-gen RTX 3070 has a starting price at $499, although in reality many vendors are selling it for $700 or more.
Discussion (14 replies)
Join Discussion →And hence their justification for higher prices next generation. Why miss out on sweet sweet dollars.
Nvidia is wrong. People are not paying $300 more to upgrade their GPUs. People are paying $300 more to increase their mining profits.
Once mining isn't profitable at current prices gamers definitely won't be paying a premium to upgrade their GPUs.
The only way you only payed 300 more is if you got a 3060 iso of an intended 3080 or something.
I lucked out on my Aorus 3090 and now my EVGA 3080Ti as I got them at near MSRP. Sold the 3090 for what I had in it a year or so later so I can't complain.
I'm just relieved to see cards inching their way back to MSRP if not original MSRP prices.
I'm sure things will settle at some point but there are a few factors to take into account that could end up defeating any dreams that any of us have with prices dropping to what we consider reasonable.
Long before mining spiked to what's happened in the last couple of years NVIDIA began hiking up those prices. I remember when the 1080s came out, people were complaining then, lord I remember how many thought it was insane what the Titans were going for. I think I paid around $750 for my Strix OC edition 1080 Ti on its release day. Right before the first RTX cards came out I watched my 1080 Ti double in value the same month the 2080 Ti was being released. I'm pretty sure I paid around $1K for a Strix 2080 Ti on its release day.
We all rejoiced at those fantastical prices NVIDIA hyped with Ampere and that, sure enough, became a dumpster fire with mining but also other factors. Taiwan was hit with one of the worst droughts it'd seen in over 20 years that resulted in TMSC hauling water to its factories for chip production. Various political bs helped to shake supply chains even before COVID and we still have issues in getting them back. Now we have fuel prices on the rise and that will also affect the bottom dollar. Meanwhile, from coal to gas there are major energy cost factors happening in Asia, and abroad. Assuming some miracle happens and all these things level out in the next 24 months who's to say what is considered normal by then?
Oh yeah, energy prices here in Belgium have gone through the roof, people gone from paying 200€ month to 800€ or even more.
I don't think Nvidia intends to lower their MSRP's for the upcomming gen, but with the cost of living going up so much, people wont be able to afford many cards if they go up even more and they still want to eat.
But we will see what happens, hopefully there will be competition and inventory.
Nvidia has to please the shareholders - I don't see them cranking MSRP if people don't buy the cards.
What I do see is perhaps a leveling off. The one bright spot is that the RTX3000-series is fabbed by Samsung - meaning that Nvidia wouldn't be undercutting themselves at TSMC (a simplification of course) by continuing to produce those GPUs as well, and by and large the RTX3000 series has been a fairly solid release all around performance wise. Hopper will be faster, no doubt, but it's also not really necessary for the broader PC gaming base either.
I hate to admit it but yeah, this pegs me almost to the exact dollar amount. I went over my usual budget by about $300 give or take on my latest GPU. There hasn’t been a whole lot of choice - we are just now starting to turn around out of the “take it or leave it” market we’ve been in.
Hey NVIDIA guess how much I've paid? Exactly zero. That's an MSRP bellow MSRP. Just because some are willing to pay scalper prices doesn't mean a significant portion of the market isn't sitting by the sidelines.
It ain't some...
Though I wish I'd stepped around to the GPU section at Microcenter yesterday to see. AMD cards have been sitting on shelves for months, Nvidia cards have been nowhere to be seen beyond the odd GT730 and GTX1050 cards.
Nvidia GPUs are becoming more available for sure, but they're not readily available the way AMD GPUs have been.
I didn't pay more than MSRP, but I did by a bigger/higher end card than I normally would have. And a lot of patience with the EVGA queue system (and to some extent Newegg Shuffle)
Same, though I somewhat consider these SKUs to be a sort of scalping because their MSRPs are so much higher than the announced FE prices.
We don't have those kinds of opportunities here in the EU, the cards are already sold at what I consider scalper prices at the retailers. They have been readily available for a year now at least, but not at a price I'd even consider.