Nvidia’s graphics cards have tumbled in price over the last week, and AMD’s GPUs have too (in many cases, anyway).
Yes, the great easing of graphics card price tags continues for RTX 3000 and RX 6000 products, and it’s not surprising that Nvidia’s GPUs in particular are dropping, given that the RTX 4000 range was revealed earlier this week. And also, the Ethereum merge happened recently, decreasing demand for graphics cards on the crypto front to boot.
As Tom’s Hardware, our sister site which has been keeping regular tabs on GPU pricing, reports, the main drops for Nvidia’s current-gen GPUs were witnessed with the RTX 3090 and – drum roll – the RTX 3060 Ti, both of which fell by 11% at US retailers. Remember, that’s just in a week, so it’s a pretty hefty drop in that short timeframe.
The RTX 3070 also dipped by a substantial 7%, and the RTX 3050 by 8%, with most other Nvidia graphics cards seeing decent drops of 2% to 3%. There were a few models that the price didn’t change for, namely the RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3060.
As we mentioned at the outset, there was also some considerable downward movement for AMD GPUs. That includes big drops for the RX 6700 and 6700 XT which both fell by around 15%, and the RX 6750 XT’s price tag was reduced by 11% compared to a week ago.
There were exceptions with AMD graphics cards though, at the top-end and low-end, with the RX 6950 XT flagship actually increasing in price by 4%, and the RX 6500 XT going up by 5%, with the RX 6400 rising by a substantial 9%.
Analysis: Is now the time to grab a GPU?
This is great news overall, with an average price drop across all current-gen GPUs of 3.5%. What’s also very welcome are the reductions in more affordable Nvidia graphics cards, which have pretty stubbornly resisted price decreases thus far, such as the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3050, both dipping by around 10%.
What’s odd is that some of AMD’s budget offerings have spiked upwards, and there’s not really any explanation for that which comes to mind. The flagship RX 6950 XT going up in price can be explained – it has just come off sale, as Tom’s Hardware observes.
As for the RTX 3090 Ti, which didn’t go up, but also didn’t drop, its price staying the same is likely due to the fact that this flagship GPU has already come down a long way in recent times. And the RTX 3060 remaining the same price is likely a reflection of how popular this graphics card is right now, as one of the more affordable models. But really with the RTX 3060 Ti not costing all that much more, you’d be better off springing the extra cash to get that additional performance, something we made clear in our review of the 3060 Ti.
Or you could look at an AMD RX 6600 as an alternative, which is an excellent value proposition right now as Tom’s points out, if you’re willing to consider going Team Red. Or indeed, you could just wait – as pricing may well drop further yet. With these reductions happening over the span of a week, it’s likely prudent to see what another week or two brings.
That said, Nvidia’s incoming Lovelace cards will kick off with just the RTX 4090 and a pair of RTX 4080 variants, so there won’t be an RTX 4070 or 4060 for some time yet – not until early 2023, most likely. You may recall Team Green saying it’s going to use a layered strategy of next-gen and current-gen GPUs being on sale together in the nearer future, and so movement on the mid-range and lower-end RTX graphics cards may be more limited after these initial bigger drops following the Lovelace announcement. Still, waiting and seeing won’t hurt, as we can’t see things going up on the Nvidia GPU front.