Recently, the sharp decline in the price of graphics cards has aroused market concern, and the Beijing Business Daily reporter also visited the relevant stores in Zhongguancun and found that the price of graphics cards was basically "waist cut", high-end graphics cards fell by thousands of yuan, and the bursting of the mining bubble was the main reason for the price reduction. In addition, with the outflow of second-hand "mining cards", buyers are also holding a wait-and-see attitude, industry experts believe that although the mine owner's departure and upstream expansion have inhibited the price to a certain extent, in the long run, the appreciation trend of bitcoin is difficult to break, and it is still possible to "hit the pond fish" again.
The price of cloud smoke in the past has risen and fallen
In Zhongguancun Hailong, Dinghao and other electronic malls, many stall leaders revealed to the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the current price of independent graphics cards is close to "waist chopping" compared with last year.
In 2021, the soaring price of Bitcoin has catalyzed the enthusiasm of "mining", but also made the supply of independent graphics cards in short supply, in early 2021, Bitcoin once broke through the high of $40,000, countless "miners" went to buy graphics cards one after another in order to improve computing power, dreaming of taking a step ahead on this track from algorithm to wealth.
In the Dinghao electronic mall, a booth leader told reporters that the price of 3060 and 3050 series graphics cards fell by half compared with last year, last year, the graphics card equipped with 3060 chips was often 6000-7000 yuan, and now the quotation is slightly more than 3000 yuan, and the 3050 graphics card is about 2700 yuan. The Beijing Business Daily reporter visited several stores and found that the price of the same commodity was generally the same, and the quotation fluctuated up and down by about 300 yuan.
It is reported that the independent graphics card is independent of the hardware of the computer, because of its appearance characteristics are also known as "knife cards", its core is the display chip, in addition to external interfaces, bridge interfaces, fans and other components. The so-called 3050, 3060 sequence, refers to the chip produced by NVIDIA, commonly known as "N card" in the market, in addition to AMD production of "A card". The difference in parts and assembly methods distinguishes different graphics card brands, and there are currently major brands such as ASUS, Gigabyte, and Rainbow in the Beijing market.
The person in charge of a booth located on the third floor of Dinghao told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the brand is not the main factor in determining the price, the chip is the key, and a good chip can provide stronger computing power, so when the mining activity was crazy last year, the more high-end the chip price was more amazing, such as the graphics card equipped with the 3060Ti chip, which exceeded 15,000 yuan last year, and even approached 20,000 yuan. Even so, buyers often don't get the goods. Today, the above graphics card is quoted at about 4700 yuan.
Another graphics card seller told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that after the graphics card was shipped from the manufacturer, after the regional agent distribution, each stall got the goods before selling to consumers, last year's graphics card shortage, mainly because many miners directly from the factory to take the goods away, "don't say us, even the agent does not have a few pieces in hand, we buy the goods at a higher price, plus a little profit on the out."
A second-hand mine card that is difficult to distinguish between true and false
It is worth noting that the plummeting price of graphics cards does not seem to ignite the desire to buy, after a round of mining boom baptism, consumers also have doubts about the quality of graphics cards on the market, afraid of buying used second-hand "mining cards".
A stall leader of Hailong told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the mining activities have now been deserted, with the bursting of the bubble, many mine owners are no longer hoarding graphics card mining, before the rush of miners urgently need to sell hoarded graphics cards "back to blood", the market is filled with a large number of second-hand mining cards, and told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that to buy new and second-hand here, the price difference of about 500 yuan.
However, the Beijing Business Daily reporter also found that the operators have different opinions, some said that they had second-hand mining cards in their hands, and some said they did not, and insisted that there are basically no second-hand mining cards in the market around Zhongguancun, which seems to be quite taboo about the term second-hand mining cards.
In the industry view, graphics cards also have a service life, the general manufacturers to give the reference warranty is 3-5 years, if the normal use, the maintenance of performance time will generally be longer. However, most of the graphics cards in the hands of miners run 24 hours a day, and it is not unusual to have a five-year life span after half a year of overdraft.
A graphics card buyer of Dinghao told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the new and old graphics cards are difficult to distinguish in appearance, use washing plate water to clean it, replace it with a new heat pipe, and the fan can completely mix the beads. Some miners even buy a graphics card after the first time to disassemble the heat pipe, fan, use the water cooling system to cool, use enough and then install the original fan, the appearance is exactly the same, and the chip has experienced irreversible damage.
Unpredictable graphics card movements
During the visit, the Beijing Business Daily reporter found that many sales manufacturers said that now the price of graphics cards has basically bottomed out and will not fall again, and some said that "now is the best time to buy graphics cards." But industry experts have a different view.
Industry observer Dong Min told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the bursting of the bitcoin bubble is only temporary, and it has a basis for rising in the future, and it is not impossible for graphics cards to become popular again due to this impact. He believes that "the price of Bitcoin will be followed by a slowly fluctuating trend, and after 2024, it is expected to rise to varying degrees." With the development of big data and the Internet of Things, the core technology of Bitcoin, that is, the blockchain, will store data in a distributed manner. In addition, the impact of the global local war and the new crown pneumonia epidemic has stimulated some countries to release water and issue fiat currency, and there are still opportunities for bitcoin as a relatively confidential security asset in the world."
Recently, it was reported that TSMC expects to increase the wafer production of N5 process nodes from the current 120,000 pieces per month to 150,000 pieces per month in the third quarter of 2022 to meet the future order needs of AMD, NVIDIA and MediaTek.
For the production level, Dong Min said: "The cost of graphics cards has decreased with the easing of the supply of chips such as GPUs and the reduction of costs. Graphics card manufacturers are also improving supply capacity and releasing new products, and the relationship between supply and demand is long. After that, for a considerable period of time, the graphics card price will still be in a downward channel. ”
Today, has the graphics card returned to rationality? An operator refused to predict the price trend of graphics cards, he told the Beijing Business Daily reporter, from several years of a card is difficult to find, to now thousands of yuan a night of decline, like a big drama. "The price is hard to say, it's not normal anymore, it's crazy." He laughed.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Jin Chaoli and Wang Zhuli took photos