The price of high-end graphics cards, such as the RTX 30 series, has stabilized, falling by about 40% from the peak. There is talk that the price of graphics cards has stabilized due to a sharp decrease in demand caused by the cooling of related markets, such as a decrease in demand in the PC market, seasonal off-season, and a plunge in coin market prices.

According to the price comparison site 'Danawa', the price of the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Supreme X D6X 12GB Tri-Frozr 2S peaked at 2.7 million won in December last year and has currently fallen to 1.6 million won, a 40% decrease compared to the peak. Radeon graphics cards also showed a price drop of around 40%. The SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 6800 XT PULSE OC D6 16GB Tri-X has fallen to the early 1.1 million won range after recording the early 1.8 million won range in December last year.

When looking at the factors behind the decline in graphics card prices, the first cause can be attributed to the change in sentiment in the cryptocurrency market. Among them, the change in Ethereum's mining method was often cited as a factor in this decline.

High-performance GPUs were mobilized in Ethereum mining because it allowed users to verify whether the blockchain storing transaction history had been tampered with or not. The algorithm used to verify Ethereum's blockchain runs quickly on graphic chipsets, processing 101 MHz per second on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and 61 MHz on the AMD Radeon RX6800. This is a significant difference compared to the 6.1 MHz processing speed of the AMD Threadripper 2950X, a PC processor.

As a result, high-performance graphic cards were widely used for Ethereum mining, which naturally led to a shortage of graphic cards and an increase in their prices. In addition, the surge in demand during the rising price of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin has fueled the rise in graphics card prices.

However, since Ethereum announced last year that it would switch from 'Proof of Work' to 'Proof of Stake', mining using high-spec graphic cards is no longer valid. This is because the Ethereum Foundation announced on its official blog that Ethereum 2.0 is coming soon and that mining will be switched to a method that distributes dividends based on stake rather than the computational power of the graphic card.





Recently, Bitcoin prices have been falling and have been cut in half. According to Upbit, compared to the high of 80 million won in November last year, it has now fallen below 40 million won. There are also stories that the cooling of the coin market has had an impact on the stabilization of graphic card prices. In addition to the EU’s cryptocurrency regulation movement that is accelerating this cooling, the recent 99% plunge of K-coins Terra and Luna has also been added. In this way, graphic card prices are expected to show a stabilizing trend for the time being amid the rigidity of the coin market.

On the demand side, seasonal off-season and depressed consumer sentiment for IT products are cited as reasons for price stabilization. According to the relevant industry, the first half of the year is a seasonal off-season when performance of IT products such as PCs and smartphones is poor, and inflation has dampened consumer sentiment, negatively affecting performance of PC products.

According to a survey released on the 10th by market research firm TrendForce, “Demand for Chromebooks has fallen sharply in the first half of this year as COVID-19-related demand has disappeared.” TrendForce forecasted that “demand for commercial notebooks will increase as many countries return to the office, while demand for consumer notebooks will be lower than last year.”

While the explosive consumption of IT products triggered by COVID-19 continued until last year, there are concerns that a backlash may occur this year, resulting in a consumption gap.

Consumers and gamers alike are wondering when the best time is to buy a graphics card. Opinions are pouring in that they will buy it when the RTX 40 series comes out, saying that the price should drop further.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards are expected to be released around September of this year, and AMD's RX 7000 series is also expected to be released in the second half of this year. Accordingly, consumers are expecting a decrease in demand and price drops for existing products such as the RTX 30 series and RX 6000 series.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA is running a campaign to ensure smooth supply of the GeForce RTX 30 series to gamers. While it was difficult to obtain RTX 30 series graphics cards last year, NVIDIA is expected to supply the RTX 30 series at a reasonable price through this campaign.