Follow up: August 2022, September 2022, October 2022, November 2022, December 2022 Nvidia is running “promotional pricing” for the RTX 3080 12GB and above, in their words: “After a long period of supply shortages we are taking action with our partners to deliver a limited time promotion for enthusiast gamers and serious creators.” Of course, there’s more to the story than just that.

The reason Nvidia has dropped prices isn’t so much that they want to do everyone a favor, but rather that consumers aren’t buying GPUs at current prices. The next generation of graphics cards is widely anticipated and expected before the end of the year, existing GPUs are nearing on two years old, and a lot of shoppers are making a pretty solid judgement call that the value proposition for high end models isn’t great. This is leaving thousands upon thousands of graphics cards sitting around going unsold, putting pressure on everyone in the supply chain to get rid of these units before next-gen arrives and they become even harder to sell. We’ve heard that there’s a big backlog of GPUs to sell and cards aren’t flying off the shelves despite some of the lowest prices in two years.

However, it’s hard for retailers and AIBs to just lower prices by themselves to get volumes flowing. Cutting prices too low, especially below MSRP, could see them make a loss on each model. Usually AIBs want to receive some sort of rebate or compensation from the GPU manufacturer before cutting prices, and that appears to be what Nvidia are enacting now with their promotional pricing update. The updated pricing sees the RTX 3090 Ti drop from $2,000 to $1,500, the RTX 3090 goes from $1,500 to $1,300, the RTX 3080 Ti from $1,200 to $1,100, and the RTX 3080 12GB finally gets some sort of official price, now set at $800. Other models remain unchanged which isn’t too surprising as the demand for lower priced GPUs is still reasonable. But there are a few points to make about these adjusted prices…

Average Sale Price of eBay Completed Listings, New Products, 3rd Week of Month

(click to enlarge) First, some AIBs were already selling GPUs at these prices before the announcement. Checking in on Newegg pricing for the last three months, the RTX 3080 Ti, for example, has already been selling for as low as $1,000 in the last month, and currently can be found for $930 – an MSI Gaming X Trio model – which is well below Nvidia’s supposed promotional pricing of $1,100. The RTX 3090 Ti was also nearing $1,500, though the price adjustment has seen prices drop 11% this month. The RTX 3090 has seen an even larger drop, a 21% price correction. Another interesting phenomenon is the current pricing for the RTX 3080 12GB compared to the original 10GB model. The 12GB model is actually now cheaper than the 10GB model on Newegg – comparing cheapest model vs cheapest model. The 10GB card is more expensive this month, rising just above $800, while the 12GB model has dropped 15% to $740 at its lowest. This is likely due to AIBs receiving some assistance from Nvidia to sell the 12GB model, whereas no such assistance is currently being provided for the 10GB card. This obviously makes the 12GB card the better buy, as it not only has more VRAM, it’s also slightly faster.

Across the rest of Nvidia’s lineup, the news are less positive. With no promotional pricing for the RTX 3080 10GB and below, most of these are still being sold above the MSRP. The RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti have come down in price, but the RTX 3060 actually went up, while the RTX 3050 seems to have bottomed out at $330 – despite a $250 MSRP. The average month on month price drop across the lineup is less than what we saw in June.

Average Sale Price of eBay Completed Listings, New Products, 3rd Week of Month

(click to enlarge) For AMD Radeon GPUs, there’s been no official word on price cuts, but pricing in general continues to fall across their lineup. On average, cards from the RX 6000 series are sitting 10 percent below their launch MSRPs, with all models except the 6800 series available below their official price – and the 6800 series is very close to MSRP now. These price cuts include freshly released models from the 50 XT range, such as the RX 6650 XT which is already 13 percent below MSRP for the cheapest models right now. On average, Radeon GPUs fell in price more than GeForce GPUs, and month on month July has also been a better month for AMD products. Some cards are reaching much more acceptable prices in the current market, such as the Radeon RX 6600 which is available for just $260. We remember back when RX 6500 XTs were selling at launch for around $260, and let me tell you, the RX 6600 is a miles-better purchase.

Both Nvidia and AMD are also attempting to sweeten the deal with various game bundles. AMD has the “Radeon Raise the Game” program, offering up to three games with your GPU purchase. In the case of budget options like the RX 6500 XT and below, those just get Saints Row 3, while the RX 6650 XT and below get that game plus Forspoken. The RX 6700 and above get those two games plus Sniper Elite 5. You’ll need to purchase through a participating retailer to take advantage of the bundle. On the Nvidia side they’ve got a “4 game” bundle running, although it’s more like 2 games plus 2 DLC packs: Ghostwire Tokyo, Doom Eternal and both parts of Doom Eternal’s The Ancient Gods expansion. Unlike with AMD’s bundle, which gives you a game with any of their current gen GPUs, Nvidia’s bundle only applies to the RTX 3080 and above, desktop and laptop models.

GeForce vs Radeon Price Points

Here’s how AMD and Nvidia’s card lineups are matching up at the moment. The price reduction for Nvidia’s high-end models hasn’t changed too much how these stand as these cards were already in a class of their own in terms of pricing. From a value standpoint, most of these models still don’t make a ton of sense. We don’t see why you’d bother spending $200 more on the 3080 Ti over the 3080 12GB – and similarly, spending $150 more on the 6900 XT instead of a 6800 XT doesn’t seem like a sensible choice. And that’s despite the 6900 XT sitting 15% below MSRP.

A chasm has opened around the $600 price point, occupied exclusively by the Radeon RX 6800, while Nvidia is not offering anything in that range right now. Meanwhile, in the lower parts of the market the RX 6700 XT is looking solid with pricing sitting around the mark of the RTX 3060, though the RTX 3060 Ti isn’t too far behind in price. Then in the mainstream section, it’s all AMD right now with the RTX 3050 going head to head with the RX 6600 XT at the same price. We’re not even going to discuss the GTX 1630, that card is total garbage.

To Buy or Not to Buy?

That’s the question. We’ve seen a range of opinions from people ranging anywhere from “you must buy all the GPUs immediately,” to “you should definitely hold off for the next-generation.” We sit somewhere in the middle and our opinion hasn’t changed much from last month. In spite of price adjustments and high-end GPUs generally getting cheaper, we still don’t think it’s a good idea to buy these right now. An RTX 3090 for $1,300 remains very expensive and we wouldn’t be keen shelling out $1,000 for a Radeon 6950 XT either. At the minimum, we’d want tier below pricing, so an RTX 3090 at the MSRP of an RTX 3080, or an RTX 3080 for $500-type deal. We’re still ways from that pricing becoming a reality.

We say this for a couple of reasons. One is that these models will likely be superseded this year with faster cards, and we don’t think either GPU brand will be able to get away with as ridiculous of a pricing model as they might have been able to a year ago. Buy now at the MSRP and get burned within six months is what we expect. The other reason is that it feels like there’s a bit of angst brewing from the AIBs about how many cards there are left to be sold before the next-gen arrives. Current pricing is low compared to 9 months ago – but it’s not that low. We are not seeing ridiculously good deals as a lot of cards (especially from Nvidia) are still priced above MSRP. As soon as that dam wall breaks, which could be within the next few months going on current trends, that’ll be the time to buy. Keep an eye out for deep discounts and flash sale. Don’t be tempted into “deals” that aren’t even meeting the advertised price from two years ago.

As for mid-range and mainstream GPUs, we could make a case to either buy or wait depending on your needs. Nvidia’s RTX 3050 and RTX 3060 have plateaued in price in the last few months, while AMD GPU pricing continues to fall in this segment. We don’t expect these GPUs to be superseded soon, so you might be waiting a year or more for next-gen replacements. You could wait and hope that prices fall a bit further, but we think there’s less pressure on AIBs to sell their existing inventory of these models. We’re not suggesting everyone should buy or everyone should wait, but we think there’s more of a case in this price range to buy.

Used GPU Pricing

As usual we look at the used market by using eBay’s completed listings. There’s a few interesting things this to discuss this month. For the GeForce 20 series, prices continue to fall and we saw an 8 percent reduction month on month. You can now see a lot of these cards are now well below MSRP as they should be. The RTX 2070, for example, is now selling for under $300 used. A year ago you were looking at paying over $600 for one of these cards. For the GeForce 16 series, price drops are slowing down, particularly for cards selling in the sub-$150 range. The GTX 1650 and GTX 1650 Super are priced about the same on eBay right now, so it doesn’t make any sense to buy the non-Super model, which is slower. Last month, we saw a big 16% price drop on average, this month is just 6 percent. When it comes to Pascal-era GPUs, prices have hit the floor in July with very little movement. Especially for the lower tier cards, it doesn’t seem like sellers are willing to part with their old models for less than $100. This could be related to the RTX 3050’s price stagnation in recent months as well. After all, it’s the used market that is catering to Nvidia buyers after a card for less than $300, especially given how terrible the GTX 1630 is. The Radeon RX 5000 series continues to get cheaper but like with other used models, the pace at which prices are coming down has slowed. Just a 10 percent drop month on month, compared to 24 percent in June. The level to which prices have come down for these mining-friendly cards is pretty crazy, a year ago you would have had to fork out around $800 for a 5700 XT, today they are less than $300 and we imagine a lot of the cards on eBay are ex-mining models. Then for AMD’s older GPUs, we’ve seen a big drop in price for the Vega series, but a less significant decrease for Polaris-based models. Again, around that $100 price point there’s a bit of stagnation, RX 580 4GB and RX 570 4GB models haven’t changed in price, though either option is quite cheap, especially the RX 570.

Wrap Up

Overall we continue to edge closer to what we’d describe as a normal GPU market, although we don’t think we’re quite there yet. Some GPUs still aren’t selling at their MSRP and others should be cheaper than MSRP due to their age but aren’t. Of course, at this point a number of those MSRPs are looking fairly dubious, but on a positive note it is great to see prices continue to come down for the majority of cards. Considering what we’re hearing about how many GPUs are left to be sold before the next generation of cards launch, we could be not too far away from one final push to clear existing inventory. We don’t think we’re at that stage just yet, but as soon as it happens it could be the best time to buy a new GPU this year.

As we said earlier, keep an eye out for flash sales and anything that brings pricing well below MSRP. If you can snag a higher-end model for tier-below pricing you’ll be doing very well, but we wouldn’t be tempted spending $800 or more on current-gen models. On the used market, price reductions have slowed to some degree, particularly for GPUs below $200 and older lines like the GeForce 10 series. However, there’s still a fair bit of ex-mining stock floating around that’s yet to be sold through. Just be wary when looking at buying a used GPU as a lot of listings will be for ex-mining cards that have been flogged over the last two years, make sure you get a very good deal on something like that.