Our GPU price index tracks all the best graphics cards and the latest additions to our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. We (manually) scrape eBay's historical data to get details on what sort of prices people are paying for GPUs. For this update, we've reworked some of our data collection plans and are now tracking current and previous generation graphics cards.
The latest headlines for cryptocurrencies are bad news for graphics cards, as both Bitcoin and Ethereum have rebounded in value. Prices on GPUs haven't shot up... yet. But the profitability of GPU mining did improve, and if the current trends continue we'll likely see GPU prices respond. We're not talking massive amounts of income, though, as even an RTX 3090 only nets about $8–$9 per day. Given the current price on eBay of around $2,350, that's still nearly 300 days to break even — and that's assuming crypto prices don't drop again (which they probably will, though they're equally likely to rebound again it seems).
We update this article on a bi-weekly basis (twice per month), to check on the latest pricing trends. We're looking at the past two weeks of data for the latest generation graphics cards now, meaning Nvidia Ampere and AMD Big Navi. We're also including the past month (July) of sales for previous generation GPUs (Turing and Navi). We check eBay's sold auctions, filtering for junk data and confining results to actual real GPUs (as much as possible). Some junk listings may slip through, but we're mostly looking at the overall trends. Here's how things looked for the end of July and the first part of August.
| Graphics Card | Avg eBay Price | QTY Sold |
|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 3090 | $2,341 | 694 |
| GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | $1,810 | 402 |
| GeForce RTX 3080 | $1,583 | 1306 |
| GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | $1,075 | 606 |
| GeForce RTX 3070 | $1,094 | 1480 |
| GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | $939 | 958 |
| GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | $707 | 1068 |
| Radeon RX 6900 XT | $1,521 | 88 |
| Radeon RX 6800 XT | $1,195 | 143 |
| Radeon RX 6800 | $1,103 | 129 |
| Radeon RX 6700 XT | $812 | 533 |
GPU prices have mostly stagnated during the past two weeks. A couple of models went down in price (RTX 3080 Ti and RX 6800 XT), while every other GPU went up at least slightly — the RTX 3070 and RX 6700 XT showed the biggest jump in prices, with the latter increasing by 12%. Uh oh.
The good news is that the supply of all GPUs appears to be improving. Or maybe more people were suddenly excited about paying too much money for a new GPU on eBay? Whatever the case, the quantity of cards sold went up on every GPU, with the RTX 3070 Ti, RTX 3060 Ti, and RX 6800 XT basically doubling in unit sales. We should note that we also changed the way we collect data slightly, and compared prices and unit sales of July 26–August 9 with the previous two weeks (even though if you flip to the next page, you'll see data from July 8–July 22, 2021).
Nvidia outpaced AMD by a ratio of 7.3 to 1 for latest generation GPUs sold on eBay, and the cost of those GPUs was 9.5 to 1 in favor of Nvidia. Considering the fastest AMD GPUs (for mining) basically match the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti, the lower average prices on AMD cards make a bit of sense. However, LHR (Lite Hash Rate) GPUs from Nvidia definitely muddy the waters.
Which brings us to the next interesting set of data, our first monthly look at previous generation GPU prices.
| Previous Generation Graphics Cards | Avg eBay Price | QTY Sold |
|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | $1,028 | 321 |
| GeForce RTX 2080 Super | $828 | 194 |
| GeForce RTX 2080 | $733 | 152 |
| GeForce RTX 2070 Super | $682 | 520 |
| GeForce RTX 2070 | $604 | 276 |
| GeForce RTX 2060 Super | $593 | 250 |
| GeForce RTX 2060 | $465 | 536 |
| GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | $425 | 191 |
| GeForce GTX 1660 Super | $455 | 1148 |
| GeForce GTX 1660 | $370 | 227 |
| GeForce GTX 1650 Super | $334 | 359 |
| GeForce GTX 1650 | $288 | 443 |
| Radeon RX 5700 XT | $829 | 1467 |
| Radeon RX 5700 | $698 | 148 |
| Radeon RX 5600 XT | $523 | 269 |
| Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB | $393 | 131 |
| Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB | $321 | 29 |
Nvidia's RTX 20-series GPUs continue to sell at mostly higher than launch prices, the sole exception being the RTX 2080 Ti (which was overpriced to begin with). Considering these cards have largely been supplanted by faster RTX 30-series GPUs, we suspect most of these are being purchased by miners, but then we get to the GTX 16-series.
The GTX 1660 Super ends up being by far and away Nvidia's most popular Turing generation GPU. These cards are still in production, as far as we know, because they use TSMC's 12nm process and thus don't directly compete for wafers with any other GPUs. (RTX 20-series production was restarted as well.)
The AMD side of the equation is even more interesting. RX 6000 cards are still quite difficult to come by, but look at the RX 5700 XT! That GPU alone basically matches sales for every other RDNA and RDNA 2 GPU combined — on eBay, at any rate. That's not too surprising, considering the RX 5700 XT still delivers excellent mining performance of around 55 MH/s for Ethereum, with relatively low power requirements.
We'd like to know if AMD is still actively producing additional Navi 10 GPUs. The GPU is now over two years old and its replacement has arrived — and the RX 6600 XT has just launched as well, which basically delivers equal or slightly better performance while using less power. Except, the RX 6600 XT isn't good for mining. Unlike the RTX 20-series and GTX 16-series, however, AMD's RDNA 1 cards all use the same TSMC N7 manufacturing process as the newer RDNA 2 cards. Either AMD and/or its partners had a surplus of Navi 10 GPUs still hanging about, or AMD started producing more GPUs (unlikely), or the demand from miners has made them a better commodity for trading purposes.
The bad news is that all of the previous generation RX 5000-series cards basically cost double the original launch prices, and the same applies to most of the GTX 16-series (the not-as-available GTX 1660 Ti being the exception). The good news is that, at least compared to June, prices on all of the previous generation GPUs dropped about 13% on average. Total unit sales were down month over month, however, with the RTX 2070 and RTX 2060 Super being the only exceptions.
While Nvidia outsold AMD by 7.3 to 1 for the latest GPUs, looking at the previous generation GPUs Nvidia only leads by a 2.25 to 1 ratio. Average prices are also higher on AMD's previous generation, so that gross sales only favored Nvidia by a 1.6 to 1 ratio. We'll have to see what things look once August is over, and whether the higher than expected eBay sales figures for previous generation GPUs continues, or it the supply starts to dry up.
Weekly Summary: The Bouncy Ball Simulation
Cryptocurrencies are, if nothing else, very unpredictable. All the signs for an impending collapse are still out there, but after a few months of circling ever downward, crypto has decided to change course and head back up. Bitcoin bottomed out around July 20 at just under $30,000, and now here we are a few weeks later staring $45,000+ in the face. Ethereum has basically followed a similar path, bottoming out at less than $1,750 and now sitting at over $3,100.
We won't make any predictions on where cryptocurrency prices will go next, but if prices stay high or continue their upward trend, GPU prices will inevitably follow suit. They might not reach their former peaks where RTX 3090 cards were selling for $3,000 or more, but we definitely won't see sub-$1000 RTX 3080 cards any time soon at the current rate. We can only hope the next bounce goes in a more favorable direction.
