GPU prices go boom

Kaapstad · 25 Jan 2018 at 21:03

pete910 said:
When you opening a GPU history museum

At my age I am a museum.

Simon Belmont · 25 Jan 2018 at 21:12

With these prices on GPU's atm this could hurt the gaming industry as we know it. I know a few leaving pc gaming all together. It was bound to happen.

Meddling-Monk · 25 Jan 2018 at 21:15

Doobedoo said:
It would be quite easy for OCuk to sell at a reduced price to Loyal forum members who have more than say 1000 posts and only 1 per customer. Easy to circumvent the miners but less profit to be made.

How about long time members too who've "recently" had posts about getting a card too? Wanting to move from this 7950 as the fan is starting to rattle now as well but can't as no stock or crazy prices or second hand after being run to death already, so I'm kinda stuck between a rock and hard place.

Doobedoo · 25 Jan 2018 at 21:42

Meddling-Monk said:
How about long time members too who've "recently" had posts about getting a card too? Wanting to move from this 7950 as the fan is starting to rattle now as well but can't as no stock or crazy prices or second hand after being run to death already, so I'm kinda stuck between a rock and hard place.

Two choices really mate either wait longer or pay stupid money.

I really hope that people begin to exercise their true power and stop paying these silly prices, these companies cannot exist without us but if you pay your money you are a part of the problem.

Steampunk · 25 Jan 2018 at 22:01

Doobedoo said:
Two choices really mate either wait longer or pay stupid money.

I really hope that people begin to exercise their true power and stop paying these silly prices, these companies cannot exist without us but if you pay your money you are a part of the problem.

The problem is that the gamers are already not buying at crazy prices, it's the miners buying because they will just put the card to work and simply wait longer to get a return on the outlay. After that they are in profit, and that's all they care about and why they are buying card after card. The more cards they have, the more they mine, the more money they make per day. Until the price of coins drop or there's a switch to some other algorithm that doesn't work well with cards (ie makes profit unviable), there's no reason for miners to stop buying at these crazy prices.

shannowdr · 25 Jan 2018 at 22:15

I don't think I would want to be a case sales rep right now

Must be quite difficult market with GPU and RAM prices

decto · 26 Jan 2018 at 00:06

I picked up an RX580 in the summer when there were some 'for gamers' deals to be had here. I'm not really playing anything that really uses it on PC, most of my steam catalogue are > 3 years only. Given the current crazy pricing,I'm seriously thinking of offloading as I'm likely to get my cash back and then sticking my GTX680 back in then picking up a new xbox with the proceeds. If I buy from Holland, you can buy 2 xboxes for the price of a lightly used RX580 which is crazy.

Currently playing Halo CE (classic xbox version) again on the 360 and I can't say I really care about the graphics, just having a good time. Xbox rendering at upconverted 1080p which is then upconverted to 1440p by the monitor @ 32" and my eyes haven't fallen out, bled or caught fire.

4k@ 60fps is of no interest to me, Lots of great games out there to enjoy that aren't all about the graphics and are actually far better games, go retro for a while and play some cheap as chips games until it sorts itself out.

Halo and Halo 2 cost me 50p each.. with a little backwards compatibility all is good.

Being an old fart who originally played played doom in a letter box size bit of screen estate on a 386, even 10 year old graphics are good enough if the underlying game is decent.

While the pricing is crazy, it's no more crazy than house prices, concert ticket secondary market and repeatedly renting a car for 2-3 years when it depreciates the most.
It's a capitalist economy, you make your choice.

Give me a keyboard + mouse in FPS on xbox and I can't really see the need for PC gaming other than a back catalogue of steam games. Microsoft have a fantastic opportunity... just waiting for them.

Meddling-Monk · 26 Jan 2018 at 00:36

Doobedoo said:
Two choices really mate either wait longer or pay stupid money.

I really hope that people begin to exercise their true power and stop paying these silly prices, these companies cannot exist without us but if you pay your money you are a part of the problem.

Oh I don't intend to buy anything at the current prices. No way. It's just I'd rather not have a rattling fan constantly until I can wait for the prices to come back down from silly levels, so I just hope the wait won't be that long.

V F · 26 Jan 2018 at 06:37

Simon Belmont said:
With these prices on GPU's atm this could hurt the gaming industry as we know it. I know a few leaving pc gaming all together. It was bound to happen.

Or it’s all part of a plan...

ljt · 26 Jan 2018 at 08:10

V F said:
Or it’s all part of a plan...

Perhaps it's Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo secretly buying all the Gpus so more people switch to console

win win for them lol Money from mining and money from more users on console

mid_gen · 26 Jan 2018 at 08:27

ljt said:
Perhaps it's Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo secretly buying all the Gpus so more people switch to console win win for them lol Money from mining and money from more users on console

Cryptocurrency was invented by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to kill off PC gaming. Illuminati confirmed.

Just looked at prices here at te German OCUK mothership....can't get a 1080ti for less than 1000 EUR. lolz

pgi947 · 26 Jan 2018 at 09:02

Not entirely sure why so many are so puzzled at pricing.

Put your self in Gibbo or other retailers shoes, you run a business driven by profit margins, demand for one product line has such high demand they can double the price and still sell without issue.

While I admit it's far from a great scenario for gamers at the moment people need to remember ocuk and others are retailers not charities.

As we've seen in the past, the crypto bubble will burst...again, the market will flood and prices will normalise again.

My advise is invest in a gsync or freesync display and a lower tier card and enjoy, absolutely zero need to upgrade every 6 months with this technology.

Dirk Diggler · 26 Jan 2018 at 09:19

@pgi947

OcUK did this with the 8700k shortage, too. At least with the CPU they offered a pre bin and delid service but obviously with the GPUs there's no way to tart it up.

It's now established that this is what they'll do when there's a shortage, they'll escalate the price to maximise the profit. No one is forced to buy, so we've just got to decide how we feel about it when it is time to buy. I've compared some prices this morning, and to be fair to OcUK they might be the most expensive right now but they clearly aren't the only retailer that have raised prices. They all seem to have did it.

subroutine · 26 Jan 2018 at 09:38

Retailers may be cashing in on inflated graphics card prices but I suspect they are losing out on the sale of many other components due to that, especially if miners are the main customer of these cards. That certainly applies in my case because, as a gamer, I won't pay the amount being asked for a 1080ti so that has put a whole PC build on hold.

chroniclard · 26 Jan 2018 at 09:41

Stuck in a vicious circle now, I have to mine to be able to afford the next nVidia card.

henson0115 · 26 Jan 2018 at 09:50

pgi947 said:
Not entirely sure why so many are so puzzled at pricing.

Put your self in Gibbo or other retailers shoes, you run a business driven by profit margins, demand for one product line has such high demand they can double the price and still sell without issue.

While I admit it's far from a great scenario for gamers at the moment people need to remember ocuk and others are retailers not charities.

As we've seen in the past, the crypto bubble will burst...again, the market will flood and prices will normalise again.

My advise is invest in a gsync or freesync display and a lower tier card and enjoy, absolutely zero need to upgrade every 6 months with this technology.

not very moral though is it. business or not, no other business industry does this to such an extent. also long term picture...
edit: all ranges are affected low/mid and high...

Steampunk · 26 Jan 2018 at 10:15

henson0115 said:
not very moral though is it. business or not, no other business industry does this to such an extent. also long term picture...
edit: all ranges are affected low/mid and high...

I think it also damages the relationship between customers and OCUK. People will realise that the prices are pushing beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, and the goodwill and long term loyalty disappears. Once customers start looking elsewhere instead of coming to OCUK first, then it's all about price and nothing else. There's no "customer relationship", there's just who is the cheapest.

scritchyrat · 26 Jan 2018 at 10:48

Yep. In the main, OcUK are more expensive than a majority of other companies but people keep using them due to the experience and service they receive. If the goodwill from said service runs out due to repeated gouging, people will go elsewhere and it's an almost Sisyphean task trying to get those customers back; see Bungie, EA ect for proof.

adey · 26 Jan 2018 at 11:05

I was all set to order a ryzen 7 build today but when i came to add the GPU i got a shock and deleted the whole basket...

Zeed · 26 Jan 2018 at 11:12

subroutine said:
Retailers may be cashing in on inflated graphics card prices but I suspect they are losing out on the sale of many other components due to that, especially if miners are the main customer of these cards. That certainly applies in my case because, as a gamer, I won't pay the amount being asked for a 1080ti so that has put a whole PC build on hold.

Its not that clear mate. I remember Gibbo sayign profit margin on stuff they sell like cpus motherboards and so on is LOW liek 20-30 quid on 400 pounds product. Now if You sell gpu at lets say 900 instead of 650. You made 280. MAsically by that You made profit like on selling WHOLE SYSTEM. Not to mention Logistic costs will be lower on 1 product than on whole system.