In Vietnam and worldwide, buying a new graphics card (GPU) right now feels nearly impossible. With Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, hitting record highs, most new GPUs from AMD and Nvidia are being snapped up by crypto miners in bulk. This huge demand far outpaces supply, driving prices way above their official retail tags.
Interestingly, this GPU price surge isn’t just hitting new models. It’s also pushing up prices for used GPUs. Since miners can’t get their hands on new GPUs, many in Vietnam are desperate enough to buy secondhand cards that have been used for years to keep mining ETH.
Used GPUs Bring Double the Profit After Years of Use
AMD GPUs have quickly become the top choice for crypto miners. Thanks to better hash rates, older AMD GPUs from a few years ago offer more profit than similarly priced Nvidia cards.
Cards like AMD’s RX 570 and RX 580 are in huge demand among miners, with buyback prices nearly double what they cost new a few years ago. (Screenshot)
For example, the RX 580, a mid-range card released in 2017, is now being bought used for around 7.8 to 8.2 million VND for the 8GB version. Keep in mind, this price is for cards that have been used for quite a while. Naturally, the newer the card looks, the higher the price.
Surprisingly, many Vietnamese users who owned GPUs like the RX 570 and RX 580 have made several million dong in profit selling them, despite using them heavily for years.
“I bought my RX 580 8GB back in March 2018 on an e-commerce site for about 2 million VND. The seller said it came from a mining farm that was offloading cards when ETH prices crashed, trying to recover funds. After using it for about 3 years and no longer needing it for gaming, I sold it to a reseller for 7 million VND, making a 5 million VND profit,” said Duc Tung, a user from Hanoi.
Another user, Hoang Viet from Hanoi, recently sold his RX 570 8GB for 5.8 million VND, earning about 1 million VND more than what he paid when the card launched in 2017. Viet shared that as soon as he posted it on Facebook, several resellers quickly contacted him to buy it.
A mining rig with six RX 570 GPUs connected to one motherboard. Each RX 570 nets about 3 USD profit daily after electricity costs.
GPU Prices Keep Climbing Month After Month
The skyrocketing prices of used GPUs, rising every month, have left many users regretting selling their cards too cheaply just before the crypto boom.
“I upgraded to a new GPU and sold my old RX 570 to a friend in November 2020 for only 1.5 million VND. Just a few months later, he resold it for 6 million VND,” shared Tan Trung from Ho Chi Minh City.
Back in January 2021, when ETH prices were gearing up to surge, a major computer retailer in Ho Chi Minh City launched a trade-in program for old AMD cards like the RX 570 and RX 580. Users could swap their old cards for a brand-new Nvidia GTX 1650 Super, which cost about 3.6 million VND at the time.
This attractive deal drew a lot of attention since people could trade in their beat-up old GPUs for a shiny new card without paying extra. However, few realized the reseller was the real winner, since the buyback prices for used AMD GPUs were much higher than the retail price of the new Nvidia cards.
The GPU price frenzy is expected to continue as the crypto market hits new highs. But with Ethereum’s upcoming switch to version 2.0 and its move to proof-of-stake (PoS), GPU mining will soon become obsolete. Experts predict used GPU prices could crash sharply in the second half of 2021.
