It’s no secret that the pricing for many of today’s graphics cards has been terrible due to the chip shortage, tariffs and the ongoing demand. But now Nvidia itself has confirmed we’re all paying much more for the company’s GPUs.
On Tuesday, Nvidia held an investors day, where it revealed an interesting tidbit about the current generation RTX 3000 graphics cards. “Looking into the millions of desktop GeForce gamers who we know have upgraded their GPU to a 30-series, they are buying up,” said Nvidia SVP Jeff Fisher during the event.
“The GPU is offering more value than ever. Based on our data, they are spending $300 more than they paid for the graphics card they replaced,” he added.
Fisher made the statement while touting the growth Nvidia is experiencing in the gaming market. The higher spending is certainly good news for the company, but not so much for consumers looking to own a graphics card at an affordable price.
For example, the company’s RTX 3060 Ti product is supposed to start at $399. But many vendors have been actually selling the product from $560 to $699, and that’s at normal retail pricing. At the same time, the low supplies for GPUs has probably sparked some buyers to pay more out of desperation.
During the investors day event, Fisher added that only about 29% of Nvidia’s gamer base has upgraded to an RTX GPU. The remaining 71% are still on older GTX graphics. Hence, Nvidia says it still has plenty of untapped growth in the gaming market.
The company is also expected to introduce its successor to the RTX 3000 series, likely around September, which will give consumers another reason to upgrade. But one big question is how much the GPUs will cost. If the prices are insane, then count us out.
In the meantime, Nvidia has said the company’s product supplies should improve during this year's second half, which might also result in lower pricing. "We'd love to bring that back down (the pricing),” Nvidia’s CFO Collete Kress said back in December. “We believe bringing that down really just takes providing a reasonable amount of supply in the market versus the lean amounts that we have today.”
In addition, the company is considering manufacturing the RTX 3000 series for some time, even after the next-generation GPUs launch, to help address the demand.