Things are bleak but there are glimmers of hope for graphics card prices falling in 2022.
At the risk of sticking my neck out, I’m going to say this – I’m cautiously optimistic for graphics card prices in 2022. Yes, things are bleak. Yes, things can only get better. But, there are glimmers of hope on the horizon this year. Like many of our readers, I’m a long-suffering PC gamer trying to make last-gen’s cards stretch just that little bit further. I’ve been running an AMD RX 480 since 2016 and I’ve watched the release of the Nvidia RTX 3050 with bated breath wondering will this finally be the one? Long story short, I held out and the card sold out – quickly, I might add. Still, a lucky few managed to get a decent card for just $249 this week. For gamers everywhere that’s fantastic news. For too long now we’ve had to settle for buying second cards from way-back-when or settle for horrendously price-gouged budget GPUs. Better yet still, several sites have reported that the GPU market is finally stabilizing, if not outright improving just yet. This, alongside developments in the Crypto market, has me cautiously optimistic. I want to believe, and there’s finally evidence to suggest this year it might be possible to build a gaming PC without selling a kidney or remortgaging your house. Now, before we get into it, for the sake of balance it’s important to quickly cover a few counterpoints to what I’ve suggested above. First up, the fact is that both Nvidia and AMD (and Intel, for that matter) are facing increasing manufacturing costs this year. TMSC, which is the Taiwanese semi-conductor firm that most of the big silicone giants use for their latest chips, has quoted increases anywhere between 10 to 20%, depending on the process. Off the bat, that right there does not look good for graphics card prices in 2022. It’s giving retailers and vendors another excuse to hike up those prices even before they hit the shelves to face the scalpers. Before I sound conspiratorial – many have speculated that the numbers over the past year simply don’t add up. YouTube channel TechLens for example in a post from October 2021, found that even with increased manufacturing costs, import tariffs, and shipping costs, prices were still inflated. It straight-up sucks that retailers would join in on the GPU price gouging but it seems there’s evidence to suggest that that’s partly the case.
