GPU Prices 2023: July Update

Below is the original text for our look at GPU prices from early February, 2022, showing eBay prices for the month of January. The text below here has not been edited since the original post.
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GPU prices in January were down across all graphics card models, with the only exception being the RX 6900 XT that stayed flat. That's no surprise, as there's a strong correlation between GPU prices on eBay and the current profitability of cryptocurrency mining. With a slump in prices over the past two months, it seems miners are no longer quite so keen to pay exorbitant prices. Hopefully, that combined with increased supply of graphics cards, plus the launches of the Radeon RX 6500 XT and GeForce RTX 3050, will mean more GPUs for gamers.

Ethereum's price at the start of the year was around $3,700, and it's now hovering in the $2,700 range — nearly a 30% drop! Bitcoin didn't do much better, going from around $47,000 on January 1 to a current price of $37,450. That's a 20% drop, and it includes the recent recovery from a low of just $33,500 on January 24. Profits for mining are now under $4 per day for an RTX 3090, and less than $2 per day for anything that does around 60 MH/s or less. That means the RTX 3070 non-LHR and below, and the RX 6900 XT and below, all net less than $2 per day.

As you'd expect, with plummeting crypto prices and a lack of demand from the mining sector, GPU prices continue to drop, but there's a long way to go. Here's a look back at the month of January 2022.

The RTX 3050 had an inauspicious start, at least on eBay, selling just 17 cards at an average price of $539. That's double the MSRP, and definitely not one of the best values overall, considering previous generation GPUs like the RTX 2060 and RX 5600 XT can outperform it. The other RTX 30-series GPUs dropped in price an average of 5–11%, with the RTX 3090 showing the biggest change. The average price of an Nvidia GPU dropped by 6.7% compared to the previous month, which is good to see.

The story from AMD was similar. The RX 6500 XT launched on January 19, to the excitement of pretty much no one. While the average selling price on eBay was 'only' 83% higher than AMD's $199 MSRP, only 14 cards were sold. Kudos to sanity winning out. Nearly all of the AMD GPUs also dropping in price, from 6–11%, though the RX 6900 XT did increase $1. Overall, the average prices on RX 6000 cards was down 12.4%.

Given the decline in prices, it's no surprise that many GPUs sold fewer cards in January compared to December. There are a few cards that bucked that trend, however. There were 5% more RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 GPUs sold from Nvidia, but numbers were down on everything else, with the 3080 Ti dropping by 24%. AMD meanwhile clearly increased supply on some models, with the RX 6600 selling nearly twice as many cards (on eBay) compared to the prior month. All told, 4% fewer cards were sold, but the number of AMD cards sold increased by nearly 20% month over month.

That's not too difficult to understand, once you look at the value proposition. AMD's RX 6600 XT and RX 6600 continue to offer the best bang for the buck, even in these days of overpriced GPUs, with the RX 6700 XT coming in third overall. Those three cards deliver 0.13–0.15 fps per dollar spent, while most of the other cards are in the 0.10–0.12 fps/$ range. Not surprisingly, the 6900 XT, 3080, 3080 Ti, and 3090 deliver the worst overall value. Also note that the RX 6500 XT ranks below most of the other options.

GPU prices on previous generation cards followed a similar pattern, though with an interesting twist in that 10% more previous generation GPUs were sold compared to December. AMD's RX 5500 XT, both the 4GB and 8GB models, showed the biggest price drop, falling around 20%. Part of that is likely due to the 6500 XT launch, but considering the 8GB card performs better overall, it's the better pick right now. Nvidia GTX 1660 models, all three of them, also dropped 10–14% in price, possibly thanks to the previously pending RTX 3050 arrival.

The average markup on the previous generation GPUs is still 66% over the launch MSRPs, sadly, so none of these are truly good deals. Still, they're getting better, bit by bit. As you can probably guess, the GPUs that deliver the highest relative mining performance for their price, like the GTX 1660 Super and RX 5700/5700 XT, have the biggest markups.

It's interesting that, where Nvidia outsold AMD by a ratio of 5.1 to 1 for the latest generation GPUs, that ratio drops to just 2.9 to 1 for previous generation cards. The total number of cards sold didn't change much compared to December, but the RX 5700, RX 5600 XT, and RX 5500 XT 8GB units sold increased by 30–75%.

In terms of best value, the RX 5500 XT 4GB takes the top position, followed by the GTX 1650 Super. Given the cost of the rest of the system, however, we'd try to finagle an RX 6600 into the budget if possible, as it's a much better GPU overall. Or, you know, just keep waiting and hopefully the current trend continues.

GPU Prices Summary: Going Down, Down...

While there's a very strong correlation between GPU prices and cryptocurrency prices, the former usually trails the latter, with less dynamic swings. With cryptocurrency valuations dropping 35% on Bitcoin and 45% on Ethereum over the past two months, there was no way GPUs would continue to sell at their previous prices. At the same time, miners aren't the only ones buying graphics cards, so while prices did head south, it was only to the tune of a 5–10% dip in most cases.

With the RTX 3050 and RX 6500 XT launches now in the rearview mirror, we can also hope that overall supply of graphics cards will improve across all price segments, further helping to bring down prices. Of course, if we were cynical [raises hand...], we'd also suggest that AMD and Nvidia might be averse to flooding the market and getting prices back to 'normal.'

You only need to look at the two recent launches to see how the base level MSRPs are pretty much meaningless. All the factory overclocked models sell at radically inflated prices, even if the overclock is only 1–2%. Would an add-in card partner prefer to list a card at AMD's or Nvidia's MSRP, or would they rather apply a tiny overclock, tack on "OC" in the name, and mark the price up by 50% or more? Since the scalpers and retailers are just going to mark up prices regardless, you can guess that most of the supply will end up with higher MSRPs.

There's one potential 'savior' for graphics cards still waiting in the wings, though. The Intel Arc graphics cards are supposed to launch in the next month or two. Intel appears to be going after laptops first, and it's really hard to say how prices, availability, and performance will truly match up to the existing AMD and Nvidia cards. (Hint: Geekbench is not a meaningful look at gaming performance.) We suspect the entry-level Intel Arc solutions will try to compete with the RX 6500 XT and similar cards, which isn't saying a lot, but perhaps real-world prices will be more attractive. We'll find out more soon enough.

For now, we continue to play the waiting game. Graphics might not be as impressive as on some of the latest games, but at least the price is right.