Graphics card prices are again lower in early August 2022 than in the previous month, although the pace of the decline has slowed. We’ve compiled the data for the current prices, both retail and eBay, for the best graphics cards and all the latest GPUs in our GPU benchmark hierarchy. eBay prices have fallen an average of 6% since July 1, and prices for previous generation cards have fallen an average of 8%. Interestingly, retail prices also fell 7% on average, with several GPUs posting double-digit declines.
There is a strong correlation between graphics card prices and mining profitability, and there are some minor concerns about the slow recovery in cryptocurrency prices over the past month. Mining profitability improved somewhat, although even the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti are only making around $2.50 per day on average. Bitcoin bottomed at just under $18,000 in mid-June and is now just over $23,000. Ethereum also hit a low of less than $900 on June 18 and has since recovered to around $1,700. Will they keep this level? That’s the billion dollar question.
| eBay price on August 1st | eBay price on January 1st | Selling price on August 1st | GPU RRP | eBay YTD change | Retail vs. eBay price | Retail vs MSRP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geforce RTX 3090 Ti (opens in new tab) | $1,330 | — | $1,400 | $2,000 | — | 5% | -30% |
| GeForce RTX3090 (opens in new tab) | $959 | $2,918 | $1,204 | $1,500 | -67% | 26% | -20% |
| Geforce RTX 3080 Ti (opens in new tab) | $850 | $1,992 | $950 | $1,200 | -57% | 12% | -21% |
| GeForce RTX3080 12GB (opens in new tab) | $700 | — | $799 | N/A ($800?) | — | 14% | 0% |
| Geforce RTX 3080 (opens in new tab) | $638 | $1,783 | $800 | $700 | -64% | 25% | 14% |
| Geforce RTX 3070Ti (opens in new tab) | $550 | $1,244 | $674 | $600 | -56% | 23% | 12% |
| Geforce RTX 3070 (opens in new tab) | $475 | $1,179 | $550 | $500 | -60% | 16% | 10% |
| Geforce RTX 3060 Ti (opens in new tab) | $429 | $1,007 | $471 | $400 | -57% | 10% | 18% |
| Geforce RTX 3060 (opens in new tab) | $345 | $761 | $390 | $330 | -55% | 13% | 18% |
| Geforce RTX 3050 (opens in new tab) | $300 | — | $300 | $250 | — | 0% | 20% |
| Radeon RX6950XT (opens in new tab) | $895 | — | $1,000 | $1,100 | — | 12% | -9% |
| Radeon RX6900XT (opens in new tab) | $750 | $1,527 | $749 | $1,000 | -51% | 0% | -25% |
| Radeon RX6800XT (opens in new tab) | $575 | $1,387 | $670 | $650 | -59% | 17% | 3% |
| Radeon RX6800 (opens in new tab) | $510 | $1,282 | $580 | $580 | -60% | 14% | 0% |
| Radeon RX6750XT (opens in new tab) | $509 | — | $500 | $550 | — | -2% | -9% |
| Radeon RX6700XT (opens in new tab) | $400 | $898 | $449 | $480 | -55% | 12% | -6% |
| Radeon RX6650XT (opens in new tab) | $350 | — | $340 | $400 | — | -3% | -fifteen% |
| Radeon RX6600XT (opens in new tab) | $300 | $659 | $310 | $380 | -54% | 3% | -18% |
| Radeon RX6600 (opens in new tab) | $240 | $578 | $260 | $330 | -56% | 9% | -17% |
| Radeon RX6500XT (opens in new tab) | $160 | — | $168 | $200 | — | 5% | -16% |
| Radeon RX6400 (opens in new tab) | $140 | — | $140 | $160 | — | 0% | -13% |
If you’re willing to take a risk on eBay, almost every GPU now sells below its official MSRP. There are only three exceptions, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3060 and RTX 3050. The most expensive GPUs are even sold 20-35% below MSRP, along with RX 6600 XT, RX 6600 and RX 6500 XT.
Retail prices aren’t significantly worse either, giving you the peace of mind of buying a brand new GPU. Only the RTX 3080 down to the RTX 3050 are sold above MSRP, at about a 10% premium on the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 Ti and a 20% premium on the other three GPUs. By the way, the RTX 3080 12GB is actually available fewer than the 10GB card and generally delivers 5-10% better performance.
While Nvidia still has a few cards over MSRP, AMD’s GPUs are all way below MSRP if you go through eBay, and only the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 are selling at MSRP if you retail a new card want to buy. One could argue that some of AMD’s GPUs initially had a higher than guaranteed MSRP, but the same is true of certain Nvidia cards. Still, AMD’s eBay prices are currently typically around 20% below MSRP or 10% below MSRP at retail.
In terms of best value, looking at FPS per dollar spent and using eBay prices, it’s hard to beat the RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT. These are around 0.28 FPS/$, and the closest GPU is the RX 6700 XT at 0.24 FPS/$. Nvidia’s best scores are the RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Ti, and RTX 3070, all of which land in the 0.20 to 0.21 range. Or if you’re ok with a previous-gen card, the RX 5600 XT currently tops the charts at 0.30 FPS/$ – and most Nvidia RTX 20-series GPUs are more affordable than the RTX 30-series.
If you want more performance than the GPUs offer, you’ll end up with diminishing returns, although factoring in the cost of the rest of your gaming PC shifts the dynamics a bit. We used an estimated price of $750 for the rest of the PC, which means your best system-level value would come from a more expensive GPU, with the RX 6800 XT taking top honors, followed closely by the RX 6900 XT , RX 6800 , RX 6950 XT and RX 6700 XT. food for thought.
Looking at eBay prices alone, GPU prices are down 6% compared to last month, meaning the rate of decline has slowed. (July versus June prices showed a 14% drop.) The RX 6400 is the only card to have increased in eBay prices, but it’s almost $20 cheaper at retail right now, so it hardly counts – moreover, only seven such cards were resold on eBay in July.
The average GPU price for all cards sold on eBay last month is $575 compared to $614 in June. Nvidia’s average GPU price on eBay was slightly higher at $623 ($658 in June), while AMD’s average price was $399 (vs. $435 in June). Despite the higher prices, Nvidia outperformed AMD by a ratio of 3.68 to 1. We would expect similar retail margins, but unfortunately we don’t have direct access to such data.
The previous generation Turing and RDNA1 GPUs showed a similar price drop of 7% compared to the previous month. The biggest losers were the GTX 1650 Super, RX 5700 XT and RX 5700, all of which suffered double-digit percentage losses.
If you’re using a GPU older than the previous generation, it’s also worth noting that the relative value (FPS/$) tends to be higher on these last generation cards. The GTX 1650 Super to RTX 2080 Super all deliver 0.21-0.24 FPS/$. AMD’s GPUs also perform well at 0.22-0.30 FPS/$ on the RX 5000 generation. However, when you look at a full PC upgrade, the newer GPUs win.
Overall card sales for both previous- and current-gen GPUs were down compared to May, which isn’t particularly surprising since the lower prices mean there’s less incentive for people to try to offload older hardware. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of vintage graphics cards waiting to be sold.
The used card flood begins
As we predicted, a lot of used graphics cards are now coming to the used market. We’ve used eBay prices for the tables above, but bulk buyers can usually get even better deals.
For example, here are many 42 RX 5700 GPUs (opens in new tab) which sold on eBay for $9,500, or just $226 per card. That’s 12% less than the average eBay price, although there’s obviously no question as to whether or not those GPUs in the Ethereum mines have failed. That’s a far cry from that crowd of 100 RTX 3070 cards (opens in new tab) that apparently went for $1,600 each in April 2021.
As always, we urge caution Buying a used graphics card, as there are many potential concerns when a card has been mined 24/7 for the past year or more. And regardless of what the seller says, we’d assume any GPU with 6GB or more of VRAM will be mined. If you’re willing to take the risk of a used card, you should test it thoroughly as soon as possible and buy it from someone who offers returns.
Looking ahead, we’re hearing more rumors about the upcoming Nvidia Ada RTX 40-series GPUs that could land in the next month or two. The latest suggests that the RTX 4070 Ti will match or surpass the RTX 3090 Ti in performance. That seems reasonable since the RTX 3070 did the same thing with the RTX 2080 Ti. AMD’s RDNA 3 seems a little further away and will likely arrive in November, but we could see some massive performance gains there as well.
The real question will be next-gen GPU pricing and availability. Hopefully we won’t see a repeat of Scalpergate 2020, but that’s probably wishful thinking.