GPU Prices 2023: June Update

Here's the GPU pricing index data for the best graphics cards and the latest additions to our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, for the weeks of April 28–May 12. (For the curious, we skipped the second half of May because Jarred was busy moving to another state.)

The bad news, as noted above, is that prices are trending up slightly yet again on most GPUs. We're already at astronomical prices — the RTX 30-series cards are selling at 2.1x–3.5x their official launch prices, and the RX 6000-series cards are at 1.9x–2.4x their launch prices — so seeing any upward movement just makes a bad situation even worse. Only the RTX 3060 12GB saw a small 0.9% drop in price compared to our previous update, while overall prices went up another 2.2%.

There's some good news as well, maybe: The quantity of GPUs being sold on eBay increased for many of the models. RTX 3060 Ti quantity dropped about 8%, and RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT volume dropped 20–30%. However, RTX 3080 volume increased 30%, RTX 3060 12GB supply (on eBay) was up 18%, and the RX 6700 XT also sold 30% more cards than our previous update. Rounding out the list, RX 6800 volume was basically flat, while the RTX 3070 and RTX 3090 were up 4–5%.

Theoretically, then, it might be getting slightly easier to find the latest graphics cards in stock. Sadly, the higher prices suggest that's not the case as everything produced still continues to sell as fast as it can get to store shelves — and often before it ever reaches a store.

The strong correlation with Ethereum mining profitability and GPU cost also means that, short of a downturn in Ethereum prices, things aren't likely to improve at all in the near term. Bitcoin's price may have been flat, but places like NiceHash pay based on the going lease rate, which ends up going back to Ethereum for the most part — only paid out in BTC instead of ETH. NiceHash's 24-hour profitability as an example sits at over $28 per day for the RTX 3090, more than $22 per day for the RTX 3080, and close to $15 per day for all the GPUs that do around 60MH/s in optimized Ethereum hash rates. Even at these inflated prices, then, right now it's theoretically possible to break even in about 100 days. It will probably take longer than that, unless of course Ethereum's price keeps going up, but the best mining GPUs will almost certainly remain extremely hard to find/expensive to buy.

Nvidia once again outsold AMD — on eBay — by a factor of 5.8 to 1. The increase in RTX 3080 sales mean that the total dollar value of GPUs purchased off eBay (for the latest generation cards) favored Nvidia by an 8.2 to 1 ratio. RTX 3070 remained the most sold GPU for Nvidia, followed by the 3080, while AMD's RX 6700 XT alone accounted for more sales than the other three AMD GPUs combined.

Weekly Summary: Up, Up, and Away!

After the rollercoaster ride in our previous update, Ethereum has yet again jumped into a hot air balloon and headed for the skies. That's probably because some analysts suggested Bitcoin could hit $250,000 and Ethereum could hit $25,000 in the coming years — or maybe it's just hype. Whatever the cause, profitability for GPU mining is up during the past week. We don't think it can sustain the current level, but then the same was true of the previous levels.

Details continue to emerge suggesting Nvidia will soon have mining-limited RTX 30-series GPUs for all of the models except the RTX 3090. Cutting hash rates in half would certainly help, but what we really need is a large increase in the graphics card supply. Think of it like the cicada cycle: If a huge quantity of GPUs (cicadas) flooded the market all at once (brood X), all the miners (predators) wouldn't be able to gobble them all up! Fat chance that will happen, considering the ongoing chip and substrate shortages.

Flip to the next page for a look at historical charts and data.