With the semi conductor shortage still being an issue as of 2/4/2022, most people are forced to buy from scalpers. Now these scalpers come in all shapes and sizes, I imagine most of them look like a dried up raisin (much like Palpatine). There is a reason why people hate them, they disguise themselves in a delicious treats like cookies and only fool you to think they are chocolate chips. Until you bite into them and are left with a dry, chewy tasteless ball in your mouth. Scalpers are the same way, they make you think you can get your hands on the newest hardware but when you look at the price you are disgusted.
Prices 2021:
The prices for 30 series cards were extremely expensive in 2021. Scalpers were, at first, able to get their grubby hands on cards close to msrp and sell them for 2x. This continued throughout the year here is a summary:
GPU | MSRP | eBay October | eBay November | eBay December | Price Inflation |
3090 | $1,500 | $2,818 | $3,107 | $2,880 | 92% |
3080 Ti | $1,200 | $1,850 | $1,900 | $1,970 | 64% |
3080 | $700 | $1,530 | $1,600 | $1,690 | 140% |
3070 Ti | $600 | $1,151 | $1,230 | $1,270 | 110% |
3070 | $500 | $1,121 | $1,170 | $1,100 | 120% |
3060 | $330 | $700 | $740 | $750 | 126% |
Prices 2022:
We can observe these absurd prices dropping already in 2022, thanks to both the drop in ETH profitability and POS coming. A 3070 Ti is now selling for around $1,000, 3080 Ti for $1,600, 3090 for $2,300 and much more!
Mining Rigs:
A lot of scared plebs have started to sell off their mining rigs as well. Reddit user thabao managed to get a rig with 5x3060, 1x3090, 1x3080, 2x1600W Evga PSU's and an AMD 5600x for a grand total of $6,000. If we look at the 2021 prices the GPU's alone would have cost around $9,000.
Conclusion:
With the fear and greed index being at ATH, prices of GPU's are starting to drop. Many smaller miners are worried about ending their mining career in the green rather than taking a risk and having it either pay off or hurt them in the long run. This is good news for gamers who are still waiting on a GPU. These signs of price drops on 3rd part markets means that less people will be entering the Newegg shuffle, more people are selling their current GPU's and the plan to increase semi conductor production shows promise. It is speculated that the GPU shortage will be over around 2024, however based on the current market and news I would be surprised if things didn't return back to normal around 2023.
