According to recent findings from PC builders in Taiwan, a large stock of used graphics cards is being sold at rock-bottom prices by tech resellers in China. These are likely GPUs that were previously used for cryptocurrency mining but are now being offloaded.
Screenshots from a crypto mining group show many sellers looking to move huge quantities of Nvidia and AMD GPUs. This includes the latest 30-series and 6000-series cards, as well as older generations like AMD’s budget-friendly Polaris lineup.
The prices on these GPUs aren’t inflated either. For example, a bulk order of hundreds of NVIDIA RTX 3070 cards is priced just above $400 each. The RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060 are offered in minimum lots of 200 units, discounted to $370 and $293 respectively.
To put that in perspective, the RTX 3070 starts at $499, but on the market, you often can’t even buy one at that price, sometimes needing to pay 1.5 to 2 times more. Some PC shops in Vietnam don’t even sell graphics cards individually, requiring customers to buy them bundled with a motherboard or even a full PC build.
Since these GPUs are sold in large quantities, sellers likely expect other crypto miners elsewhere to buy them in bulk for continued use. Clearly, these aren’t ideal for gamers looking to buy a single card. No one wants a GPU that’s been running 24/7 in harsh conditions installed in their new gaming rig.
This simple reality revealed by these GPUs could signal a bigger drop in profitability or even the viability of crypto mining in China. The country currently has the highest hash rate worldwide, meaning it mines more cryptocurrency than any other nation. But recent tough crackdowns by local governments and financial regulators may be pushing miners to relocate their operations or switch industries entirely.
The wave of sell-offs has also contributed to a global drop in GPU prices.
ASRock reports that this situation has helped lower graphics card prices. The latest GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD are seeing price drops in Germany as well. NVIDIA is reportedly increasing RTX 3060 supply this month, and average eBay prices for Ampere and RDNA 2 cards fell 8% from May to June, while the older RTX 2000-series dropped as much as 14%.
Still, it’s hard to say what will happen next. This could be just a brief pause in the crypto mining boom. After all, even the current “low” values of Ethereum and Bitcoin are much higher than they were back in January. Either way, these are promising signs.
Source: PC Gamer
