Whisper it, GPU pricing could drop down to 'normal' by the summer
I don't want to tempt fate, but if the current downward trend in graphics card pricing continues at the current rate, MSRP parity could be achieved in as little as three months. That's according to 3DCenter's latest analysis, but don't get too excited about the prospect of affordable GPUs; the market is still incredibly volatile and things could always change quickly.
Availability is going up, however, which is a really good marker for future GPU sales.
Graphics cards are the star component for any gaming PC build and if you're not bothered about getting a new GPU at this point, you've either achieved some incredible level of Zen mastery over your PC upgrade yearnings, or you've already paid well over the odds for a rare graphics card.
3DCenter has been tracking sales and pricing across retailers in Germany, which is a key PC hardware territory, and in Austria over the past year and the downward trend in pricing is clear. At the start of the year we were looking pricing being 85% and 78% higher than MSRP for Nvidia and AMD's average selling prices. That effective surcharge has halved as we enter March.
But what is also clear from the 3DCenter analysis, is that availability is higher now than at any point in the past year and is following an inverse trajectory to pricing. And that's what fills us with hope that this latest dip in the cost of a new GPU will continue to trend towards pricing normalisation.
This is something that we've seen in both the US and the UK, too recently. Where it's actually been possible to buy new cards at retail, and for only a little more than MSRP. Anecdotally it's been AMD that has shown better stock levels, with the latest RX 6500 XT actually available in some volume and at its launch
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