News Thanks to Miners and Scalpers, eBay Pricing for Ampere, RDNA2 GPUs Continue to Rise

[Admin]

We dug through eBay listings to find the average pricing of scalped AMD and Nvidia video cards.

Thanks to Miners and Scalpers, eBay Pricing for Ampere, RDNA2 GPUs Continue to Rise : Read more

 

[Loadedaxe]

Why should they, people keep buying from them.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Why should they, people keep buying from them.

It's not so much a surprise as it is a reveal of actual hard data from eBay. Prices today are 10-35% higher for the same parts compared to prices in early January. And it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

 

[roadrunner343]

Why should they, people keep buying from them.

Exactly. It's frustrating, no doubt. But at the end of the day, miners are just another customer base, and the idiots buying from scalpers are the bigger problem. I was planning on upgrading my PC (7 years old) with a RTX 3080/ Ryzen 5900x, but I'd rather wait for a year or more if needed than pay scalpers.

EDIT: And of course, nVidia/AMD/retailers do have their share of the blame too for not properly setting purchase limits (Or allowing pre/backorders), but I still think the biggest problem are the people that continue to purchase at absurd prices.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Exactly. It's frustrating, no doubt. But at the end of the day, miners are just another customer base, and the idiots buying from scalpers are the bigger problem. I was planning on upgrading my PC (7 years old) with a RTX 3080/ Ryzen 5900x, but I'd rather wait for a year or more if needed than pay scalpers.

EDIT: And of course, nVidia/AMD do have their share of the blame too for not properly setting purchase limits (Or allowing pre/backorders), but I still think the biggest problem are the people that continue to purchase at absurd prices.

I've said it elsewhere, but I STRONGLY suspect the problem isn't so much AMD and Nvidia, as it is the third party AIBs making bulk deals with miners. (Actually, AMD and Nvidia almost certainly allocate some percentage of cards direct to miners as well these days, for the same reasons as I'll outline here.)

You can't tell me that if someone approaches Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, Sapphire, or whatever other graphics card company you care to name and says, "We'll pay you 50% more than MSRP for 5000 graphics cards -- and we'll pay you in cash, right now," that there won't be some sort of back room deal struck. If you have enough money, you can make the contacts and deals to get what you want. Miners are willing to pay scalper prices direct to the graphics card manufacturers. And the AIBs normally sell the cards to a distributor who sells to a retail outlet who sells to the customer -- so basically subtract 10-15% profits for each level of sales.

Example:
A) AIB sells 5000 RTX 3080 cards to a miner at $1000 each = $5 million to AIB.
Versus:
B) AIB sells 5000 RTX 3080 cards to a distrubutor at $500 each = $2.5 million to AIB. (Then the distributor sells to retail chain at $625 each, and the retailer sells to customer at $750 each -- or sells via eBay at $1200 each.)

Considering the cost of the cards to the AIB is probably around $400-$425 (GPU, RAM, PCB, cooler, packaging, etc.), the AIB makes perhaps $500,000 in profit on option B (and still needs to pay salaries and such), compared to making $3,000,000 in profit on option A. There's no way you have a company choose option B if it's given option A -- it just needs to maintain the facade of doing option B, for at least some percentage of cards, while selling as many cards as possible via option A.

 

[roadrunner343]

I've said it elsewhere, but I STRONGLY suspect the problem isn't so much AMD and Nvidia, as it is the third party AIBs making bulk deals with miners. (Actually, AMD and Nvidia almost certainly allocate some percentage of cards direct to miners as well these days, for the same reasons as I'll outline here.)

You can't tell me that if someone approaches Gigabyte (or Asus, MSI, Sapphire, or whatever other graphics card company you care to name) and says, "We'll pay you 50% more than MSRP for 5000 graphics cards -- and we'll pay you in cash, right now," that there won't be some sort of back room deal struck. If you have enough money, you can make the contacts and deals to get what you want. Miners are willing to pay scalper prices direct to the graphics card manufacturers. And the AIBs normally sell the cards to a distributor who sells to a retail outlet who sells to the customer -- so basically subtract 10-15% profits for each level of sales.

Example:
A) AIB sells 5000 RTX 3080 cards to a miner at $1000 each = $5 million to AIB.
Versus:
B) AIB sells 5000 RTX 3080 cards to a distrubutor at $500 each = $2.5 million to AIB. (Then the distributor sells to retail chain at $625 each, and the retailer sells to customer at $750 each -- or sells via eBay at $1200 each.)

Considering the cost of the cards to the AIB is probably around $400-$425 (GPU, RAM, PCB, cooler, packaging, etc.), the AIB makes perhaps $500,000 in profit on option B (and still needs to pay salaries and such), compared to making $3,000,000 in profit on option A. There's no way you have a company choose option B if it's given option A -- it just needs to maintain the facade of doing option B, for at least some percentage of cards, while selling as many cards as possible via option A.

Yeah, great points. It looks like I actually edited my post while you were making yours =) Once I thought about it a bit more, I definitely realized the most likely culprit was retailers/distributors. I'm sure nVidia/AMD aren't faultless (Apart from not anticipating/meeting demand), but they're also certainly not the main issue, as you've pointed out.

 

[vanadiel007]

The solution is simple, but Nvidia nor AMD will not do it because in the end everyone is making a lot of money from this situation. All Nvidia has to do is ban those board partners that sell in bulk from receiving any chips until they stop that practice. They need to be forced to choose option B.

It's a perfect situation for AMD and Nvidia, as they can blame miners, scalpers and board partners, while raking in the cash and extending the lifecycle of their current offerings by at least a year. All a consumer can do is complain, but that's it. In the end if you need a GPU you are either going to pay the price, or wait for a long time. I see this lasting until 2022 minimum.

I did something I said for the past 25 years I would never do: I bought an Alienware with an RTX 3080. Not because I wanted it, but because I wanted an RTX 3080 and there's no realistic way to get one at a half decent price. It was the only way to get one for a decent price.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I'm sure nVidia/AMD aren't faultless (Apart from not anticipating/meeting demand), but they're also certainly not the main issue, as you've pointed out.

Unfortunately anticipating demand is as good as asking a palm reader to tell you if you're going to win the lottery today. All they have to go off of is recent and historical data, along with what's happening when they decided to plan out the next X amount of time.

Case in point, auto manufacturers having production issues due to chip shortages. Around the time they were planning how many cars to produce last year, the pandemic was just starting and they figured demand would be lower. So they didn't order as much chips for the next year. But somehow they managed to sell a lot more than they normally do and since all of the chip manufacturing was signed off for, they were left with a limited supply.

With graphics cards, nobody anticipated that crypto was going to take off as much as it did. And even if it's doing great now, there's no telling how long that'll last. In the next two years BTC could balloon up to $100K, or it could pop and drop back down to $5K or something.

 

[metalfan49]

You might also be interested in checking out older GPUs. With all this craziness going on, older parts like GTX 1070 and RX480 are going for nearly $400.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

The solution is simple, but Nvidia nor AMD will not do it because in the end everyone is making a lot of money from this situation. All Nvidia has to do is ban those board partners that sell in bulk from receiving any chips until they stop that practice. They need to be forced to choose option B.

It's a perfect situation for AMD and Nvidia, as they can blame miners, scalpers and board partners, while raking in the cash and extending the lifecycle of their current offerings by at least a year. All a consumer can do is complain, but that's it. In the end if you need a GPU you are either going to pay the price, or wait for a long time. I see this lasting until 2022 minimum.

I did something I said for the past 25 years I would never do: I bought an Alienware with an RTX 3080. Not because I wanted it, but because I wanted an RTX 3080 and there's no realistic way to get one at a half decent price. It was the only way to get one for a decent price.

I hear you, but what you're really saying is: "All AMD and Nvidia have to do is make less money and force their AIB partners to do the same! And leave the profits to scalpers and eBay." Which is NOT going to happen.

I see this lasting until three months after the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum plummets by 50% or more. When will that happen? Some time between tomorrow and 2025.

 

[roadrunner343]

Unfortunately anticipating demand is as good as asking a palm reader to tell you if you're going to win the lottery today. All they have to go off of is recent and historical data, along with what's happening when they decided to plan out the next X amount of time.

Case in point, auto manufacturers having production issues due to chip shortages. Around the time they were planning how many cars to produce last year, the pandemic was just starting and they figured demand would be lower. So they didn't order as much chips for the next year. But somehow they managed to sell a lot more than they normally do and since all of the chip manufacturing was signed off for, they were left with a limited supply.

With graphics cards, nobody anticipated that crypto was going to take off as much as it did. And even if it's doing great now, there's no telling how long that'll last. In the next two years BTC could balloon up to $100K, or it could pop and drop back down to $5K or something.

I get your point, and I mainly agree, but I somewhat disagree. Obviously, there are a lot of unknowns when predicting demand, but there's also full teams dedicated to analyzing and predicting the market, just like any other industry. The crypto surge definitely was not a total surprise, it's been gaining traction for years now and we've been in the midst of a pandemic for a year now, so even that was not a complete surprise that there would be increased demand. Those are definitely perfectly valid reason to misjudge demand, but at the same time, I don't think it means they are completely faultless either. Still, I'm personally not upset at either nVidia or AMD. I'm mainly upset at dummies buying from scalpers =P

 

[Mr5oh]

It's fine, I'll continue to wait as long I have to pay MSRP. I won't even use a third party seller. Don't care I won't be part of the problem. I'd rather go without.

On top of all the other issues, I think all this is doing is showing companies people, will and can pay much more.

 

[bigdragon]

Honestly, this news just makes me even more mad at Nvidia, AMD, Amazon, Ebay, Newegg, Best Buy, Asus, MSI, Evga, and others. The whole situation should have been resolved by now. By extension, I'm also irritated that the US and state governments aren't doing more to make sure those proposed fabs in TX, NY, and GA are built ASAP. I don't think we're in some sort of crypto-driven bubble -- I think this is the new normal. COVID and telework have changed consumer expectations and demands.

Prices are also way up at retailers now. Looks like Newegg and Amazon have joined the scalpers. I bet those elevated retailer prices are contributing to pushing up reseller prices too.

I've said it elsewhere, but I STRONGLY suspect the problem isn't so much AMD and Nvidia, as it is the third party AIBs making bulk deals with miners. (Actually, AMD and Nvidia almost certainly allocate some percentage of cards direct to miners as well these days, for the same reasons as I'll outline here.)

You can't tell me that if someone approaches Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, Sapphire, or whatever other graphics card company you care to name and says, "We'll pay you 50% more than MSRP for 5000 graphics cards -- and we'll pay you in cash, right now," that there won't be some sort of back room deal struck. If you have enough money, you can make the contacts and deals to get what you want. Miners are willing to pay scalper prices direct to the graphics card manufacturers. And the AIBs normally sell the cards to a distributor who sells to a retail outlet who sells to the customer -- so basically subtract 10-15% profits for each level of sales.

Example:
A) AIB sells 5000 RTX 3080 cards to a miner at $1000 each = $5 million to AIB.
Versus:
B) AIB sells 5000 RTX 3080 cards to a distrubutor at $500 each = $2.5 million to AIB. (Then the distributor sells to retail chain at $625 each, and the retailer sells to customer at $750 each -- or sells via eBay at $1200 each.)

Considering the cost of the cards to the AIB is probably around $400-$425 (GPU, RAM, PCB, cooler, packaging, etc.), the AIB makes perhaps $500,000 in profit on option B (and still needs to pay salaries and such), compared to making $3,000,000 in profit on option A. There's no way you have a company choose option B if it's given option A -- it just needs to maintain the facade of doing option B, for at least some percentage of cards, while selling as many cards as possible via option A.

This is a very good summary of what is probably going on. Miners also have easy access to jump into the supply chain early given that so much mining is taking place in Asia where components are made and assembled.

I'd like to take what you've laid out a step further. The supply problem is further compounded by the exact same shenanigans taking place at the logistics/shipping layer and again at the retailer layer. There are plenty of posts on Twitter and Reddit from irate customers whose GPU got lost or stolen in transit. We know that store associates will set aside products for friends or buy products up themselves when their retailer doesn't prohibit it. Everyone is out to make a quick buck, and they'll jump in the supply chain where they can. The number of products making their way to consumers is comically small.

 

[spongiemaster]

I'm sure nVidia/AMD aren't faultless (Apart from not anticipating/meeting demand), but they're also certainly not the main issue, as you've pointed out.

Everything that can be produced currently is being produced. It doesn't matter if they predict greater demand, there is no way to meet it with current manufacturing capacity limits.

 

[spongiemaster]

The solution is simple

No, it isn't. There are no simple solutions to complex problems like these. If Nvidia cut off every board partner that was making deals with mining companies, they'd likely have no board partners left. Ask 3dfx how well dumping all their board partners worked out for them.

 

[hotaru.hino]

There's also the issue that the amount of manufacturers that can produce cutting edge parts is very limited compared to those who can produce say even 14nm parts.

In the end this is problem that doesn't have a simple, one-size-fits-all solution. It requires a solution on multiple fronts, some of which requires resources not everyone can just magically conjure up overnight.

 

[roadrunner343]

Everything that can be produced currently is being produced. It doesn't matter if they predict greater demand, there is no way to meet it with current manufacturing capacity limits.

Current limits? Sure. But that's sort of the point of properly anticipating demands - to ramp up production accordingly ahead of time. I highly doubt AMD or nVidia's Fab contracts are for 100% of the fab's manufacturing capacity. Had they anticipated demand earlier, they likely could have negotiated increased capacity. Again, not saying they are the main party at fault, but I do think it played a role. It's also not something I have any insider information on... so if there's info out there that I'm unaware of, I'm also completely okay admitting I'm off my rocker =P

 

[PzRSlim]

I managed to get hold of a none scalped 6800 XT from Overclockers a couple of days ago. And the GPU market is so crazy at the moment I managed to sell my 2080Ti for £750.00 on eBay. Meaning my new 6800 XT and 28% increase in Time Spy GPU score cost relatively little. Crazy times!

 

[VforV]

Everyone here is trying to justify this horrible situation by saying X is to blame or Y is to blame more than X. They are all to blame starting with:

1. nvidia + AMD;
2. AIBs scalping and selling to miners and not having (caring about) anti-bots measures or anti-bulk buys;
3. The scalpers themselves for obvious reasons;
4. Miners and gamer fools that pay those exorbitant scalper prices buying from the stores or scalper individuals.

ALL of them are to blame and in that order.

The easiest solution is the one that was before, way back when GPUs were only used for games. Someone said 3dfx, yeah those times. If the GPU dedicated for gaming is only good for that, has only functions for games, no one else would buy it, but gamers.

There should be a class of GPUs only for gaming and no extra features/functions. BUT that's never going to happen again, nvidia and AMD would loose too much money from multiple POVs if they would do that... so yeah.

 

[logainofhades]

The US needs to follow the UK's lead and ban GPU scalping.

 

[Endymio]

There should be a class of GPUs only for gaming and no extra features/functions.

Talk about entitlement syndrome. It's entertainment, not your daily bread . You can wait a few more months for it. Stop crying.

 

[Endymio]

Had [AMD and NVidia] anticipated demand earlier, they likely could have negotiated increased capacity.

You mean, had they anticipated a once-in-a-century pandemic?

And you're also forgetting that 100% of all advanced fab capacity is currently being used at present. Had AMD and NVidia negotiated for more, someone else would have gotten less, and we'd now be seeing scalping for THOSE products instead.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Current limits? Sure. But that's sort of the point of properly anticipating demands - to ramp up production accordingly ahead of time. I highly doubt AMD or nVidia's Fab contracts are for 100% of the fab's manufacturing capacity. Had they anticipated demand earlier, they likely could have negotiated increased capacity. Again, not saying they are the main party at fault, but I do think it played a role. It's also not something I have any insider information on... so if there's info out there that I'm unaware of, I'm also completely okay admitting I'm off my rocker =P

In manufacturing, being at 100% capacity as much as possible is better. It's a problem if you're not at 100% or close to it because it means you're not producing products, which is how you make money.

And you can't simply "ramp up production" if you're at or near capacity, because that requires building a new fab which doesn't happen overnight.

 

[Endymio]

The US needs to follow the UK's lead and ban GPU scalping.

Hopefully those in the US are smart enough to learn from history, and see such laws are never successful, and if they do anything, do more harm than good.

But then again, they're probably not.

 

[roadrunner343]

You mean, had they anticipated a once-in-a-century pandemic?

And you're also forgetting that 100% of all advanced fab capacity is currently being used at present. Had AMD and NVidia negotiated for more, someone else would have gotten less, and we'd now be seeing scalping for THOSE products instead.

You mean the pandemic that started a year ago? Yes. And you're not wrong that AMD/nVidia ramping up production would likely have impacted other products, but that's business. Then it would be someone else's fault for not securing manufacturing capacity.

In manufacturing, being at 100% capacity as much as possible is better. It's a problem if you're not at 100% or close to it because it means you're not producing products, which is how you make money.

And you can't simply "ramp up production" if you're at or near capacity, because that requires building a new fab which doesn't happen overnight.

I said nothing of ramping up production overnight. Which is exactly why they have teams analyzing and anticipating demand - so they can secure manufacturing capacity months in advance. That was the entire point of my comment - not that they could wave a magic wand and magically ramp up production to solve the problem now.