As 2021 makes its way into our lives, technology swings in different ways impacting the way we approach the hardware equipment necessary for our tech needs. 2021 brings some bad news for all those looking for building or upgrading their PC as the Graphics cards price kept increasing in 2020 entering the new year with the same increment rate.
At this point, one question which would knock at the door of your thinking capacity would be that what exactly led to this surge? The surge which has maintained its magnitude of intensity ever since has been an outcome of ‘Bitcoin’. This very surge in bitcoin has led to a renewed interest in cryptocurrency mining. Before, we get into the stats and consequences, lets dive into the concept of cryptocurrency.
“Cryptocurrency mining is the process of generating numbers in order to claim new blocks in a blockchain as a result of which the user earns digital currency. To mine cryptocurrency, one requires a beefy rig, because of which miners have been buying as many GPUs as possible to earn the much-wanted cyber money.”
Graphics cards were utilized for cryptocurrency mining as the hardware arms race clearly marked the victory of ASIC-Application specific integrated chip, as it took over them. The utilization of graphics cards for certain cryptocurrencies led to the shortage of graphics card as well as price rising. This exponential increment in the rising price of graphics card along with their unavailability in the industry brings a crucial point for the consumers looking forward to design their own gaming rigs or PCs.
The market trends illustrate the scenario in a way that not only new but second-hand graphics cards have also made it to the peak values. The two things that can be deduced due to the recent series of events in the tech-industry are as follows:
- Now is the worst time to purchase a new graphics card
- It is also the best time to sell any unused graphics cards which you own
NVIDIA, one of the leading graphics cards producers has also started to limit the online sales of GPUs which limits the sale of each item. NVIDIA has taken into consideration that there should not be a reckless sale of GPUs to miners but the requirements of gamers are to be met as a priority.
“For NVIDIA, gamers come first. All activities related to our GeForce product line are targeted at our main audience. To ensure that GeForce gamers continue to have good GeForce graphics card availability in the current situation, we recommend that our trading partners make the appropriate arrangements to meet gamers’ needs as usual.”
The prices of GPUs such as GTX 1080 has gone over $1000 in the third-party marketplaces which otherwise reached to $550 only. AMD cards have also experienced a similar low-hit as the once inexpensive AMD Radeon Graphics cards have seen the prices rise over the last few months. The global shortage of graphics cards is the main reason why consumers are in a state of conundrum. Consumers struggle to find graphics cards within a decent range while the best thing at hand appears to be make a decent profit by selling it off to a crypto miner. As the series of events enfolds, the best thing for now is to hope that the crunch does not last for a longer period so that cracking gaming rigs come into existence for the enthusiasts.