Between rising production and falling crypto prices, the graphics card market finally seems to be finding a lull.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 // Source: Arnaud Gelineau – Frandroid
For nearly two years, it has been very difficult to obtain a graphics card, especially at its recommended price. The shortage has its source in the explosion in demand for GPUs, in particular caused by the cryptocurrency market, but also an ever-increasing use of graphics chips in fields such as the automobile or AI.
For players, the market is very difficult and very expensive. We recently tested the Radeon RX 6500 XT, the first graphics card to use the new 6nm manufacturing process. It shows mediocre performance for a 2022 graphics card, only capable of offering 1080p gaming at 60 frames per second by adjusting the graphics options. Its theoretical price is 210 euros, which could be interesting at the moment to extend the life of a PC, but it is actually found at more than 400 euros, when it is in stock. Impossible to recommend it at this price, yet with the shortage, some may not have a choice.
Fortunately, a lull finally seems to be taking shape.
Stock for summer 2022?
For several days, many sources in the industry have been predicting an improvement in the situation. Nvidia said for example at the end of 2021 that graphics card stocks should improve in the second half of 2022. The media Digitimes Asia indicates that the production of ABF substrates, essential for the manufacture of GPUs, is expected to increase after February. The shortage of ABF substrates is expected to be “ greatly reduced by mid-2022. AMD and Intel also communicated in the direction of an improvement of the situation, in particular thanks to the production of ABF.
Like a nice alignment of the planets, the price of cryptocurrencies has collapsed over the past few days which should help reduce the demand for GPUs. In the United States, some chips have already started to see their prices drop, up to -65% in the case of the RX 6800 or -30% for the RTX 3070.
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