The Ethereum Merge has occurred, and as anticipated, GPU mining profitability has plummeted. Will issues finally get well, or will the finest graphics playing cards lastly be free from the cryptomines? We’re anticipating a flood of used graphics playing cards hitting locations like eBay, so we needed to seize this snapshot in time of GPU costs on eBay over the 2 weeks previous to The Merge.
We have been monitoring GPU costs on eBay for the previous 18 months or so, and we have watched the most well-liked playing cards for mining functions fall from unsustainable highs to considerably cheap values. Granted, you are taking a danger shopping for a used graphics card, however should you persist with the RTX 30-series and RX 6000-series, it is in all probability not that dangerous. Possibly. Anyway, let’s get on to the numbers over the previous two weeks, and we’ll evaluate these to eBay GPU costs from the month of August.
There’s nothing too shocking with the developments proven right here. We have been watching GPUs drop in value on secondhand markets most of this yr, and with Nvidia RTX 40-series Ada GPUs, AMD RX 7000-series RDNA 3 GPUs, and Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs all slated to launch within the subsequent few months (or sooner), folks proceed to unload their current graphics playing cards for no matter they will get.
Apparently, the bottom costs on some fashions are significantly better than the typical costs we’re displaying right here. It is troublesome to say if each alleged sale on eBay really finally ends up going by means of — patrons and sellers have been identified to cancel — so should you’re affected person it is probably potential to get a good higher worth on a card that is up for public sale.
General, we noticed costs come down on each GPU from the present era, with a mean decline of 6.9% (weighted by the variety of every GPU offered). The most important change was on the RX 6950 XT, which dropped 16%, although it ought to be famous that quantity may be very low at simply 4 playing cards offered prior to now two weeks. The RTX 3080 12GB additionally noticed a formidable 11% lower, with 51 GPUs offered.
When you’re in search of a brand new graphics card, you must also verify retail GPU costs and see how these evaluate to eBay pricing. Most playing cards are 10–15% cheaper on eBay, however the worth premium for a brand-new card might be price paying. Let’s shortly take a look at the earlier era playing cards as properly.
Earlier era Turing and RDNA GPUs dropped barely extra in worth, although now we’re coping with graphics playing cards which are probably as much as 4 years outdated — a few of which probably mined for many of that point. AMD’s RX 5700 XT, RX 5700, and RX 5500 XT 8GB all dropped by shut to twenty% in comparison with the month of August, whereas the RTX 2060 worth really elevated barely by 3.4% — form of ironic, contemplating brand-new RTX 2060 playing cards are probably the greatest values proper now.
Nvidia’s RTX 20-series GPUs are holding on to some remaining worth significantly better than AMD’s RDNA GPUs. That is principally the place issues had been previous to 2020, because the Nvidia advertising was robust and there was a case made for getting a card with ray tracing and DLSS help. Nonetheless, it’s kind of ludicrous that you could purchase an RX 5700 XT for lower than an RTX 2060 on eBay nowadays.
In accordance with our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, the RX 5700 XT is 30% quicker than the RTX 2060 at 1080p medium, 34% quicker at 1080p extremely, and 38% quicker at 1440p extremely. Heck, even the RX 5700 principally ties the RTX 2060 Tremendous — admittedly that is with out factoring in DXR or DLSS. Anyway, should you’re in search of a fairly quick GPU that prices lower than $250, the RX 5600 and 5700 collection playing cards actually warrant a glance.
The query now’s the place issues will go from right here. It looks like GPU costs on current {hardware} are standing on a precipice, ready for a large fall. Historically — which means exterior of the previous two years of abnormality — we might anticipate all the present era {hardware} to be promoting properly under launch MSRPs, in an effort to filter out any remaining stock proper earlier than AMD and Nvidia launch new graphics playing cards. That hasn’t occurred but, not less than not for Nvidia.
The quickest RTX 30-series GPUs just like the RTX 3090 and 3080 collection are extra fairly priced than earlier than, however actually it is solely the RTX 3090 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti which are promoting properly under their earlier MSRPs. These had been drastically inflated to start with, so reducing the 3090 Ti from $1,999 all the way down to $1,099 wasn’t significantly arduous to do. However the vanilla RTX 3080 10GB nonetheless begins at round $739 at retail proper now, and the RTX 3050 by means of RTX 3070 are additionally promoting above MSRP.
There are many rumors about specs and potential efficiency for the upcoming GPUs circulating. If these are even near correct, we may see RTX 4080 playing cards promoting for below $999 whereas delivering considerably higher efficiency — and energy effectivity — than the RTX 3090 Ti. Now toss on the aftereffects of the Ethereum Merge and it is troublesome to think about {that a} good chunk of the ~20 million GPUs that had been mining Ethereum will not find yourself being offered off within the subsequent month or two.
As we famous in the principle Ethereum Merge article, proper now most GPUs are actually making lower than $0.50 per day, and that worth continues to drop. Wanting some GPU minable cryptocoin surging to the entrance within the close to future, most large-scale GPU miners could be higher served by closing up store relatively than persevering with to pay for energy, area, help, and infrastructure.
