THE GREAT GRAPHICS CARD BUBBLE

GPU prices have been ridiculous for years. Jeremy Laird investigates how we got here and if we could return to “normal” pricing

- Jeremy Laird

Why, exactly, are graphics cards so expensive?

With every new GPU launch comes the same refrain: nice card, shame about the price. Everyone seems to agree that PC graphics cost too much, so are $600 GPUs the new mainstream reality? Is there no going back on four-figure prices for higher-performing boards? Or is there hope for something approaching a return to what you might call historical pricing models?

The good news is that graphics card prices today are lower than they were 18 months ago. Back then, mid-range cards cost over $1,000, and anything remotely high-end was megabucks. But all that was a consequence of some once-in-a-generation factors, not least of which were the pandemic, a cryptocurrency craze, and a war in Europe.

But the impact of those events, on the graphics card market, at least, has largely—if not entirely— passed. But here we are in 2023, and certain GPU models are still priced at nearly double their immediate predecessors. So is this all just a long, painful hangover, and prices are trending back to historical norms? Or has something fundamentally changed in PC graphics?

IF THE QUESTION WE’RE ASKING HERE is what the heck is going on with GPU prices, the first and most obvious observation is that graphics cards are now outliers in the PC hardware market. The pandemic and war in Europe had very broad impacts on everything from supply chains to demand for stay-at-home technology, as well as inflation in a general sense.