Graphics Card Prices Crash, Crypto Miners Resell GPUs

The price of graphics cards continues to fall. The fall in the cryptocurrency market is causing many miners to resell their GPUs.

The price of graphics cards is falling on the second-hand and retail market. As reported by our colleagues from Tom’s Hardware, the fall in prices has accelerated over the past few weeks. As a reminder, the price of GPUs had already started to drop several months ago, after 5 years of continuous progression.

Between June 1 and June 15, 2022, the retail price of certain AMD or Nvidia graphics cards increased contracted 5-7%. For example, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti was still selling around $700 on June 1. It is now priced at $600.

The decline is even more visible on the second-hand market. On eBay, prices have fallen from 2 to 21% within 15 days. Proposed at the price of 1,600 dollars at the beginning of the month, the Radeon RX 6950 XT from AMD is now trading around 1,270 dollars at auction.

The fall in the price of cryptocurrencies

The drop in the price of GPUs is caused by the collapse of the cryptocurrency market. Following the crash of the UST and the rise in inflation, the sector entered a new bearish phase. The price of Bitcoin stabilized around $20,000, far from its record high of last year. Most crypto-assets show up in the red. This is the case of Ether (ETH), one of the most popular currencies for miners. The price of Ethereum fell back around $1100, down 40% in a few weeks.

The fall in the market has cut into the profitability of miners. Fearing a bear market lasting several years, many miners resell their equipment on second-hand sites. Platforms like eBay suddenly seem awash with bargains.

Also read: Why the Celsius crypto platform is preventing its customers from withdrawing their money

Crypto miners react like in 2018

However, it will be recalled that a graphics card used to mine cryptocurrencies has lower life expectancy. To mine crypto-assets, such as Ether, GPUs run continuously and perform complex mathematical calculations. The use of a mining farm is far from a traditional use, which contributes to degrading the graphics cards prematurely. Some of the factors that contribute to early degradation include overheating.

The situation is not unprecedented. In 2018, cryptocurrency miners had already resold in mass graphics cards when the market had suddenly fallen. Within a few months, AMD’s Radeon RX580 GPU had lost up to 67% of its value.

AMD and Nvidia had even recorded a sharp drop in card sales in the months following the crash. As Bitcoin fell back below $4,500, some Chinese mining farms were even reselling their machines by the kilo. History seems about to repeat itself.

Source :

Tom’s Hardware