Asus fires huge salvo in GPU price wars – slashes 25% from RTX 30-series in Australia
Graphics card prices continue to fall, and it looks like the declines are accelerating. If the trend continues, GPUs will soon be available at their RRPs and we’ll be able to declare the end of the GPU crisis. We’re not quite there yet, but there are promising signs. If pricing in the Australian market is any indicator, those signs are looking better than ever.
In the Australian market, Asus has come out swinging with some very aggressive price drops on many RTX 30-series cards – over 25% in some cases. Let’s take the RTX 3080 10GB as an example. So aggressive are Asus’ price drops, that premium cards like the RTX 3080 TUF and Strix are now the cheapest of all RTX 3080s, undercutting more budget brands such as Galax. It’s not just one retailer either. Popular Aussie PC parts sellers like Scorptec, PLE and PC Case Gear are all listing the new prices and at the time of writing, there were stocks of most cards.
Asus RTX 3070 Ti and 3060 Ti models have also seen price drops, though for now it looks like AMD cards aren't dropping, at least not today. Now that Asus’ premium cards are among the most affordable RTX cards, it’s only a matter of time until other vendors follow suit. Any vendor is going to find it very hard to shift cards if they’re selling at 20% or more than a premium card like an Asus Strix.
In the wider global GPU market, prices are on the decline, but not to the level of the Asus Australia drops. According to 3DCenter's latest analysis of the German market, Nvidia GPUs are currently priced at 41% above RRP, while AMD cards are 35% above RRP. The latest numbers are from March 5th and considering the pace of these price drops are surely already out of date.
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