What happened to video card prices?

GladDog · July 2017

I was pricing a gaming PC for a friend, and I had a nice system worked out; all that was left was the video card. I wanted to get him a GTX1060 6GB or an RX-580 8GB. But when I looked at the prices they were ASTRONOMICAL. I paid $244 for an RX-480 and got a $10 rebate on it, so $234, about 8 months ago. I saw the same card go on sale about 6 weeks later for $219 after rebate. That same card is now OVER SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS. Equivalent cards are in the same price range. What happened to drive the prices so high?

CrazKanuk · July 2017

Ethereum (like a new bit coin) happened. You might want to hold off on buying a graphics card until the Ethereum bubble bursts.

GladDog · July 2017

How did this 'Ethereum' cause the price of video cards to shoot up? The prices of high end video cards and other components, such as CPUs, is pretty much the same as always...

Kyleran · July 2017

I work for a large financial institution and they are buying large volumes of graphic video card/processors to support the rapidly growing blockchain developments in the financial markets of which these two crypto currencies are actually a small part of.

Just saw a demo of a new machine learning tool which can make decisions from scanned images, which again requires an investment in GPUs.

Also being business purchasers they buy large quantities in bulk, likely contributing to spot shortages and higher prices.

psiic · July 2017

Boggles I have 20 750's I got for free from an office closing down maybe I should go into the crypto currency farming business.

Siegecraft.org · July 2017

Generally what the Cat guy said here, a flipper would like to buy high bulk of many of the video cards, to where you are using supply and demand to "squeeze" pennies and dollars out of the consumers. I meant of capping it off at a ceiling of the bare maximum that people are willing to pay, aka think of those couple diamond monopoly companies.