Increased demand drives up prices for NVIDIA cards

It would seem that GeForce GTX graphics cards by NVIDIA are a bit too popular for their own good. Recent price history data shows that the 10 series of cards, based on NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture, have seen a massive increase in retail pricing. As a particularly egregious example, the GTX 1070 FTW edition by EVGA (which is currently out of stock on Amazon) reached price-points just shy of $610 this week. Alternatively, EVGA’s website offers the same card for $443.99, after an instant rebate.

So, what has caused these recent price hikes? In an article on PCWorld, Senior Editor Brad Chacos states that it’s a simple matter of economics: supply and demand. Specifically, Chacos points the finger at the activity of cryptocurrency miners – buying up the powerful gaming cards and putting them to work in pursuit of economic gain. Furthermore, Chacos’ reporting suggests that we may be set to experience a dearth of NVIDIA cards – following the way of AMD’s Radeon RX 570 and RX 580. Either way, Chacos claims that now is “a bad time to be building a mainstream gaming PC.”

While stock unavailability and ludicrously priced cards from third-party sellers may be a common site on Amazon, it is worth noting that the situation appears to be slightly better on other sites like Newegg (for the time being). At the time of writing, the cheapest GTX 1070 available was none other than EVGA’s FTW edition card, retailing for $459.99 (after a $20 rebate card). Interestingly enough, the more powerful GTX 1080 by GIGABYTE could be found right at the $500 price-point – still under what third-party sellers are charging for a GTX 1070 FTW.

Unsure of how long the increased demand from cryptocurrency miners will continue, the best option might be just to purchase directly through the card’s manufacturer, if you can. Otherwise, it could be worth a look at used parts, or putting that next PC build on hold for the time being.

Source(s)