AMD and NVIDIA, it’s time for price cuts
With GPU prices declining quickly, 3DCenter came up with an idea to compare official suggested retail prices to the graphics card’s actual performance.
This is an insight of how much should each card cost based on its performance alone. The price to performance value is calculated by 3DCenter’s 4K index, meticulously collected data based on a long list of reviews.
As graphics cards become cheaper and available through multiple channels, one can now choose between a number of different custom models, or even consider its competition from other brands. This is especially true for high-end models which were among the first cards to see a significant drop in price over the last few weeks.
It is also no secret that many cards released mainly in 2021 were overpriced from the beginning. Both AMD and NVIDIA chose heavily inflated MSRPs because those cards would never sell at a lower price anyway. However, it is about time both companies realize that their prices are no longer good in relation to the actual performance.
According to 3DCenter’s calculations, who have chosen RTX 3070 as the reference point, most of NVIDIA’s high-end models are overpriced and should cost a lot less. However, mid-range and low-end models from the NVIDIA lineup could be considered well priced, especially the RTX 3060 Ti model which offers better performance than its costs. That’s also the reason why many board partners had no 3060 Ti in stock for many months, it was simply too powerful for its price and board partners could easily sell costlier SKUs in its place.
In fact the situation on the GPU market has changed so much that NVIDIA is supposedly no longer shipping its RTX 3080 12GB model to board partners. The reason stated by leaker MEGAsizeGPU is its price in comparison to RTX 3080 Ti. NVIDIA has never publicly confirmed 3080 12GB MSRP though.
The RTX 3090 series are among the worst priced cards in whole comparison. Both cards retail above 1000 USD, while their actual prices should be below that value. However, anything under RTX 3080 Ti is actually within 10% of the ‘Fair Price’ index, which in most cases means small overpricing or perfect (100%) balance between MSRP and card’s performance (but remember this in reference to RTX 3070).
For AMD Radeon RX 6000 series, the RX 6800 and 6800 non-XT appear to be the best priced model considering their performance. The inflated MSRP prices for RDNA2 are not really that far from the ‘Fair Price’ index though, especially the middle of the stack. This isn’t the case for enthusiast and low-end models. The RX 6950XT should cost 735USD based on this analysis, while the RX 6400 should drop to the 107 USD level.
One should remember that performance is not always the only thing that should be considered. This is especially true for flagship cards which come with highly sophisticated board designs, massive cooling solutions or other features. That surely adds a cost for board partners that cannot be calculated by framerate alone.
One thing is certain, the GPU price cut should be expected now more than ever. Sadly neither AMD nor NVIDIA are officially preparing one, however boards partners are eagerly awaiting such announcements soon. The time is ticking though, as the large stock of RTX 30/RX6000 cards is no longer a surprise to anyone, retailers will now only have 3 months to sell the majority of current-gen cards before gamers’ attention shifts to the next generation.