For PC hardware enthusiasts and game enthusiasts, there is a lot of good news in 2022, the price reduction that has lasted for several months has returned to the normal state of the graphics card market that has been too high, and the price of some models of graphics cards has been broken, and even the price of non-public high-end graphics cards has been close to the price of public graphics cards.
After waiting for more than a year, the parties who want to buy graphics cards and so on have finally seen the dawn, and it can be said that victory is at hand. However, many netizens said that they will no longer consider buying 30 series graphics cards, on the one hand, the 40 series graphics cards are rumored to be launched in advance, and they will meet with you as early as September this year, which is worth waiting for users who are not in urgent need of buying new graphics cards for less than half a year.
On the other hand, it is because the 30 series graphics cards are used for abnormal purposes such as "mining", and there is news and evidence that some graphics card manufacturers have recycled these graphics cards that were used for "mining" and sold them as new products after refurbishment. In the actual use process, these graphics cards that have been used for abnormal purposes often have a higher failure rate, so many netizens are unwilling to act as such a "wronged boss".
After the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the virtual currency market has been in a state of turmoil, the continuous decline in computing power revenue has made miners withdraw or stop increasing computing power, coupled with Nvidia chip manufacturers to restore normal chip supply, the oversupply market so that the price of graphics cards in just two months dived many times, in March the price of nearly 10,000 yuan RTX 3080, in early April it was reduced to about 6000, and after mid-April has been flat public version price, in early May some models even fell below the public version price.
However, the continuous price reduction of graphics cards has also made graphics card manufacturers a little unable to sit still, and some bad news has also come out, such as the lock computing power graphics card has been perfectly cracked. Seeing this, some readers estimated that they had to mutter: "Won't you want to raise the price again?" ”
The bad news is coming
Although the lock computing power graphics card, that is, the LHR graphics card was cracked as early as last year, but there has been no way to crack it perfectly, most of the previous cracking methods are to deceive the graphics card through some special ways, and in this process, the computing power of the graphics card will have an unavoidable loss.
The best cracking method before can only make the LHR graphics card play about 70% of the computing power of the unlocked version, taking the RTX 3060 as an example, the unlocked version has a computing power of about 47MH/s, while the LHR version has a computing power of about 33MH/S. After the release of the perfect cracking method, according to the test LHR version of the hashrate can also reach 47MH/s, basically equivalent to the unlocked version, the release of this news, so that many netizens are worried about whether the graphics card will continue to increase in price.
To be honest, netizens' worries are not unreasonable, after all, after the cracking news of the LHR version of the graphics card before, the LHR version of the graphics card that was originally at a low price (relative to the unlocked version) quickly increased by about 30%. The emergence of the perfect cracking method has also allowed many merchants to start to increase the price of the graphics card, and some Taobao merchants have adjusted the price overnight, hoping to make a profit again.
Taking the MSI RTX 3080 12G Magic Dragon Z in a Taobao store as an example, the price of the graphics card on May 8 was 5139 yuan, and on May 10, that is, after the news that the LHR version of the graphics card was completely cracked was confirmed, the price of this graphics card quickly rose to 6259 yuan, an increase of more than 20%.
However, Xiao Lei also noticed that not all graphics cards are increasing in price, in addition to the obvious price increase of MSI's graphics cards, most of the other brands of graphics cards still maintain the price after the price reduction, only a small number of models have a rise of 100-200 yuan. It may be that the price increase news of these brands has not yet been delivered to the distributor, or it may be that these dealers do not think that the news of the graphics card cracking can bring enough market demand, and the information of the price increase will set off the resistance of netizens, resulting in further impact on the sales of graphics cards.
At least after the LHR version of the graphics card was perfectly cracked, the situation of a sharp price reduction on the graphics card has not yet occurred, although the possibility of subsequent price increases is not ruled out, but Xiao Lei feels that everyone does not have to panic, as long as the existing cautious purchase attitude is maintained, then the price increase of the graphics card can only be temporary.
Because the price of graphics cards is no longer only affected by the size of the computing power, there are many factors that make it impossible for the price of graphics cards to rise as outrageously as in 2021.
Graphics card prices recover? It's just the last struggle
Many netizens are worried that the price of graphics cards will rise, from the price of Taobao there are also signs of price increases, but in Xiao Lei's view, this is only the last struggle of graphics card manufacturers, if the news of graphics card cracking can not effectively boost graphics card sales, then the decline rate of graphics cards will probably be more rapid than before. Of course, the decline should not be as large as before, because most of the "moisture" of the graphics card price has been released in the previous price reduction.
From the perspective of manufacturers and dealers, graphics card cracking is almost the last way for them to boost graphics card sales, they hope that this news can increase the sales of LHR graphics cards, while causing ordinary users to panic about the rise in graphics card prices, and subconsciously seize the "last chance" to buy the current "cheap" graphics card.
However, from the mainstream voice of the online community such as Tieba, most ordinary users who have waited for more than a year do not intend to compromise on this, although there are some worried voices, but most users still maintain the previous rhythm, and do not intend to buy graphics cards now, but want to wait for the price of graphics cards to continue to fall, or wait for the RTX 40 series graphics cards to be listed.
Since the average user has this attitude, what about miners? After all, if miners sweep up the goods, the purchasing power is far beyond that of ordinary users. Unfortunately, from the current virtual currency market and revenue, the possibility of miners sweeping goods is lower, even if the cost of adding cards to the LHR version of the graphics card is lower than that of the unlocked version of the graphics card, but there are currently a large number of second-hand unlocked graphics cards circulating on the market, and if you really want to add cards, the LHR version of the graphics card is not the first choice.
Moreover, the virtual currency market, led by ETH and Bitcoin, has been falling for several consecutive days, and both Bitcoin and ETH have fallen to the lowest prices in the recent past, and there is a great possibility of continuing to decline. Bitcoin fell below $30,000 again today, and ETH also nearly broke through $2,200, once again dealing a heavy blow to the miners' market.
The sluggishness of the virtual currency market directly affects the miners' mining income, at its peak, each unit of hashrate can provide miners with a revenue of 0.6-0.9 yuan, taking RTX 3060 as an example, the daily income is more than 40 yuan, and it only takes about 120 days to recover the cost of the graphics card.
So now? What Xiao Lei understands is that ETH's income per unit of hashrate has broken through a new low, has fallen below the income line of 0.2 yuan, and is still decreasing. So, assuming a hashrate gain of $0.18 per unit, the RTX 3060 has a daily return of $8.46, just one-fifth of its peak, and that's unlocked version of the data.
If miners want to use the LHR version of the graphics card, then they also need to pay a usage fee for the cracked program, which is generally 12% of the yield. According to this yield calculation, even if today's graphics card price has fallen sharply, the lowest price of RTX 3060 has reached less than 3,000 yuan, but the pure return cycle that does not calculate the electricity bill is also more than one year, if you add the consideration of electricity costs, the return cycle may be longer, and the period is also facing the risk of being investigated and punished by government agencies.
Miners and ordinary users do not buy it, then the price increase of graphics card merchants will inevitably become their own "carnival", and after the "carnival" is bound to face backlash, ordinary users may be more determined in their ideas, waiting for the next generation of graphics cards or 30 series graphics cards to drop to a lower price, it is possible to start buying.
Therefore, Xiao Lei believes that most brands may choose to continue to maintain the current price after observing for a few days, because as long as the price of the graphics card is stable for a period of time, some users who have demand and think that the graphics card will not reduce the price in the short term will begin to buy one after another. As for the remaining true and so on parties, it is estimated that only the price of 3060 will fall below 2000 to be able to move, and the merchants basically do not have to expect them to help themselves return the blood.
However, these merchants who rely on the tide of mines to earn profits in the past few years are actually not worthy of sympathy, after all, the most serious losses now are precisely the merchants who have the most hoarding goods, that is, the "big profiteers" in the mouths of netizens, as ordinary consumers, we naturally have no need to empathize with these capitals.
The only idea of netizens is: let the graphics card price reduction come more violently.