At the risk of baring my neck, I'll say this: I'm cautiously optimistic about graphics card prices in 2022. Yes, things are looking bleak. Yes, things can only get better. But, there are glimmers of hope on the horizon this year.
Like many of our readers, I'm a long-suffering PC gamer trying to make last-gen cards stretch that little bit further. I have been using an AMD RX 480 since 2016 and watched the Nvidia RTX 3050 launch with excitement wondering if it will finally be the one.
Long story short, I stuck it out and the card ran out, quickly I might add. Still, a few lucky ones managed to get their hands on a decent card for just €249 this week. For gamers around the world, this is great news. For far too long, we've had to settle for long-second cards or horribly inflated budget GPUs.
Even better, multiple sites have reported that the GPU market is finally leveling off, if not improving entirely. This, coupled with developments in the crypto market, makes me cautiously optimistic. I want to believe, and finally there is some evidence to suggest that this year it might be possible to build a gaming PC without selling a kidney or re-mortgaging your house.
The supply and rising cost of silicone.
Now, before we get to the heart of the matter, for the sake of balance, it's important to quickly cover a few counterpoints to what I suggested above.
First, the fact is that both Nvidia and AMD (and Intel, for that matter) are facing rising manufacturing costs this year. TMSC, which is the Taiwanese semiconductor company that most of the big silicon giants use for their latest chips, announced increases ranging from 10 to 20 percent, depending on the process.
Initially, that doesn't look good for graphics card prices in 2022. This gives retailers and sellers another excuse to raise those prices before they hit shelves to deal with resellers. Before I sound like a conspirator, many have speculated that last year's numbers just don't add up.
The YouTube channel TechLens, for example, in a post from October 2021, found that even with rising manufacturing costs, import duties, and shipping costs, prices were still inflated. It's downright unfortunate that retailers are joining in on the GPU price hike, but there seems to be evidence to suggest that part of it is.
Manufacturing costs aside, it's also worth noting that GPU prices have fallen over the past year, only to then rise sharply again along with crypto developments. Prices peaked in May last year, fell sharply in July, but then rose steadily throughout the year until November, after which they showed signs of slowing down again. In short, it's a rollercoaster that no one could predict with any certainty.
Analysis: the launch of the RTX 3050
Let's go back to the launch of the RTX 3050 in particular. Cards used to cost between $250 and $440 yesterday, with the cheapest coming in at $249,99 for single-fan low-profile cards with reference clock speeds. The most expensive card was the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3050, which cost €489,99 according to Tom's Hardware.
No wonder: all of these cards sold out in the US and UK (our main trading areas) within hours, if not minutes. In particular, sturdier cards with aftermarket coolers tended to run faster, though that's just based on our own anecdotal observations – for all intents and purposes, most cards were gone in a flash.
While this isn't exactly good news for anyone looking to get their hands on a card, the fact is that some lucky folks managed to get their hands on a pretty capable card for $249. That alone bodes well for graphics card prices around the world. 2022, although we believe there are stronger indicators for positive change this year.
glimmers of hope
We finally have a new graphics card that is so bad that even resellers don't bother to buy it.
You see, even if the RTX 3050 were to take off this week, there's actually another card that's a better indicator of where the market is headed: the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT.
Now, before you say "TheComparison, this card is absolutely terrible", let's say: "yes, it absolutely is". Its performance is on par with 2016/2017 mid-range cards and it's literally the same price of €220 at launch. However, this means that, at the time of writing, this card is still available on Amazon for €299, even a week after launch.
Yes, we finally have a new graphics card that is so bad that even resellers don't bother to buy it. Hyperbole aside, though, this is the first release we've seen in over a year that feels like business as usual, and players should see this as a welcome change for 2022. It's a bad card, sure, but we've seen how bad (and worse) cards get more expensive over a year, even on the used market.
There's also the fact that we could see some major changes in the crypto market by 2022. At the time of writing, Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently facing a drop in value (I'm wary of calling it a crash) and the latter is defined as well. . . to move on to Proof of Stake this year. While cryptocurrencies are almost certainly going nowhere fast, the fact that the most mined currency is moving to an infrastructure where GPU mining is no longer profitable is good news for gamers.
And best of all, the much-rumored Intel Arc GPUs are on the way this year. Will they be the miracle solution? Let's face it: not likely, although increased competition and demand from the silicone giants has generally always been a win for consumers.
Verdict: better, but still dystopian
An optimistic but realistic prediction for 2022 is that we will no longer pay two or three times the MSRP for a card, but rather 30% more by the end of the year.
So what do I want to say here? Well, this is the bitter truth of graphics card prices in 2022; Demand will level off, overall prices will drop, but we'll likely still face poorer options before 2020. I'm based on the RX 6500 XT launch, RTX 3050, and observed stabilization in GPU prices on well-known tracking sites. like Tom's Hardware, TechSpot and 3D Center.
In particular, the Tom's Hardware article highlights something very interesting: not only are boards starting to get a bit cheaper on eBay, but the total number of transactions is now trending downward. If demand falls, we will surely see prices follow soon.
An optimistic but realistic prediction for 2022 is that we will no longer pay two or three times the MSRP for a card, but rather 30% more by the end of the year. We're already seeing profit margins as low as 59% for some new high-end AMD cards, so I don't think it's too unrealistic to expect that if demand levels off.
I can't believe this is an optimistic prediction, but here we are: we're entering a kind of post-script dystopian landscape, at least for gamers. It would reflect my colleague Jackie's thoughts that cheap PC gaming has been dead for at least six months, but there are at least glimmers of hope for those who want to spend less than $500 on a GPU. That said, it seems highly unlikely that we'll see a return to the good old days when you could get a GTX 1060 or RX 580 for €250 at launch. But a man can dream...