Image source @ Visual China
Highlights:
1. The provincial general agent of a well-known domestic DIY hardware manufacturer revealed that since March, the average price of graphics cards has dropped by 30%, and the price of individual graphics cards has plummeted by 35% in one day.
2. Virtual currency is restricted, which is the main reason for the price reduction of this round of graphics cards. A large number of "mining" graphics cards that have been cleared have begun to circulate in the second-hand trading market.
3. Many merchants in Zhongguancun frankly said that the recent price fluctuation is too large, and it is not the time to bottom out.
RTX3080 dropped from 20,000 to 7,000 yuan - "can't afford" graphics card, and finally fell to the altar.
Graphics cards that cost tens of thousands of yuan last year have ushered in a sharp price reduction this year. Sina Technology's visit to beijing's Zhongguancun area found that the price of high-end and low-end graphics cards has been significantly reduced, "the worst time, 100 yuan per day!" ”
So, what's really going on in the graphics card market?
"Down 100 yuan a day!"
In the Zhongguancun Science and Trade Electronics Center, the counters of many electronic computer spare parts terminal agents still have boxes of popular graphics cards. The shortage of graphics cards is no longer the primary problem that plagues shopkeepers, and how to make these graphics cards sell at a relatively reasonable price requires repeated consideration by shopkeepers.
At present, a rainbow low-end RTX 3060Ti graphics card with an original price of 2999 is priced at 4799 yuan on JD.com, and the price of offline stores is comparable. A year ago, if you wanted to buy the same graphics card, you needed to add at least a thousand yuan.
In fact, the decline in graphics card prices began to show its signs in November last year. "At the end of last year, it began to fall slowly, taking GTX1660s as an example, which fell by about 400 yuan in the 3 months from November last year to January this year, and then fell sharply again in February after the New Year, the fastest time fell 100 yuan a day, falling for 3-4 consecutive days." Wen Hong, an agent of Rainbow, told Sina Technology.
According to Wen Hong, some customers he knew who specialized in hoarding graphics cards before were basically the same as the current market price. "If it hadn't been shipped before, selling a graphics card would be basically close to a loss now."
In addition to low-end graphics cards, high-end graphics cards are also reducing prices.
Abroad, the price of the Australian high-end graphics card GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC fell by 35% in one day, and the price fell from 2299 Australian dollars (about 10,000 yuan) to 1499 Australian dollars (about 7000 yuan), the largest decline in the history of graphics cards. The RTX3090 graphics card in the German market also fell from 3199 euros (about 22,000 yuan) in May last year to 1,999 euros (about 14,000 yuan). In China, according to Zhongguancun online statistics, March has become the lowest time in the past two years, the current RTX 3080 graphics card is generally quoted at 7000-8000 yuan, which has been 2000-3000 yuan lower than the price of tens of thousands of yuan a year ago.
"The graphics card market is equivalent to the national market, as long as there is no low price dumping, the whole country is the same." Since March, the average price of graphics cards has dropped by about 30%, and now they are basically in this range", Wen Hong said, because graphics card products can be shipped nationwide, it is a hard currency product, and the price difference between different regions is not large, so whether it is Huaqiang North or Beijing market, the price reduction in the national market is almost the same.
What is the cause of "mining"?
Why did the graphics cards that had been popular all the way suddenly start to reduce prices? A number of store owners with graphics cards on sale said bluntly, "There are many factors, but the decline in bitcoin and ether revenue is the most important reason." ”
In 2021, due to the soaring price of virtual currencies, "mining" has become a popular area for virtual currency investors to rush in. Among the mining machines used for mining, the main component of the Ethereum "mining machine" is the high-power graphics card. In the case of limited supply of professional "mining machines", many mining personnel have gone to the market to grab graphics cards with consumers, and then assembled them into new "mining machines" for mining.
According to industry insiders, when the momentum of "mining" is hot, some channel-based mine owners will directly drive to the door of the graphics card factory in Huaqiang North and other places to pull goods, blocking the possibility of the graphics card entering the market from the source. Mine bosses who do not have a channel to get goods go directly to the market to buy graphics cards.
"The GPU that was supposed to flow to the consumer market suddenly became a mining tool, and the extra demand out of thin air made the chip supply in the market seriously insufficient, so the price of graphics cards rose." Wang Hongliang, a Hongliang computer electronics retailer at Acer, told Sina Technology that a large mining farm often has hundreds of mining machines, and each mining machine generally needs 6-8 graphics cards, and a mine needs nearly a thousand graphics cards.
"If you add malicious hoarding and speculation by scalpers with ulterior motives, the situation where there is very little inventory in the market will be quickly perceived, accelerating everyone's willingness to buy and rush," Wang Hongliang said.
Of course, as virtual currencies were boycotted by governments around the world, and even staged a power outage, the price of Bitcoin began to fall. Some of the "mining" graphics cards that were withdrawn began to circulate in the second-hand trading market. At the same time, the restricted mining mechanism launched by Nvidia also ensures the supply of graphics cards for the consumer market at a certain level.
"Although some models of products are still out of stock, there are indeed many more products that can be obtained than before, and consumers have more choices." And as some of the graphics cards used for mining began to flow back to the market through the second-hand market, scalpers were also worried that the price would be reduced in the future, so they began to sell their graphics cards, and the price also fell. Wang Hongliang said.
When is the best time to replenish?
Behind the frequent decline in prices, the "10,000-yuan graphics card era" in which scalpers resell graphics cards has gradually drifted away. So, will the low price be a good time to choose to stock up?
The answer seems to be no. In the communication with Sina Technology, a number of agents suggested that "if you don't just need to buy, you can wait and see."
"Now the price fluctuation is too big, dare not easily stockpile goods," Zhang Hui, who is mainly engaged in computer assembly, told Sina Technology. In his view, although the current price of graphics cards has dropped a lot compared with before, compared with the market guidance price, "it is still much higher."
At the same time, the first half of the year began to enter the off-season of graphics card sales, which is also the reason why he is reluctant to hoard graphics cards excessively. According to Zhang Hui, March to June is the off-season for graphics card sales, and graphics card sales will be better from summer vacation to September. "Now the price of graphics cards is not stable, rising and falling fast, it is not worth taking risks."
According to the 3DCenter report, in December last year, the premium price of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards exceeded the initial suggested retail price by 80%, and even now, the price of graphics cards is still 25% higher than the initial suggested retail price. "Even though the RTX3080 dropped from 20,000 to 7,000 yuan, its launch price was only $699." Liang Wu, commercial vice president of a domestic general GPus company, told Sina Technology. Even though graphics card prices have dropped significantly, the prices of popular graphics cards on the market are still higher than the official guidance price.
In fact, in addition to the impact caused by the price adjustment of the virtual currency. The decline in graphics card costs and the diversification of supply are also becoming the main reasons for the price reduction of graphics cards.
On March 17 this year, the news said that NVIDIA has pushed downstream manufacturers to reduce the cost of graphics cards by 10%, and this adjustment is transmitted to the retail side, which will further lead to a decline in the price of graphics cards. In addition, Intel released the Intel Iris ARC series of mobile discrete graphics on March 30, AMD plans to release a new generation of Radeon RX6950XT, RX6750XT, RX6650XT graphics products on May 10, and Nvidia will release the RTX40 series graphics card in the third quarter of this year...
The arrival of new products has also enriched the choices of consumers, so that consumers who are eager to try new products are less eager to change their graphics cards.
"With the launch of the series of new products, the performance will be greatly improved, and the scalpers who are hoarding goods will definitely have to hurry up and ship." Liang Wu said.
In fact, not only abroad, recently the domestic Moore thread, Biling Technology and Tianshu Zhixin a number of general GPU companies, there are also new graphics cards launched and displayed. In Liang Wu's view, if the domestic GPU manufacturers rise, really fight the price war, NVIDIA, AMD and other foreign manufacturers still have a lot of room for price reduction, the future of graphics card price reduction is still relatively clear.
In his view, as the supply of graphics cards from local manufacturers and global chip manufacturers becomes more and more sufficient, the downward trend of graphics card prices will remain for a period of time.
epilogue
Last year, the attractive momentum of the soaring price of graphics cards, after-sales service personnel on individual e-commerce platforms on Jingdong also joined the boom of graphics card speculation, and the graphics cards repaired by customers returning to the factory were sold as futures for arbitrage, and finally the East Window incident "after-sales positioning", causing controversy.
Today, as graphics card prices continue to fall, the market is returning to rationality. For consumers, no matter what the reason behind the decline in graphics card prices is, the price reduction is always good news.