Corona and mining have changed the graphics card market, because AMD and Nvidia could not meet the demand. The result: moon prices for graphics cards. You can find out when the GPUs will be cheaper and which models are in the pipeline here.
In September 2020, when the RTX 3080 was released, someone could have suspected that Corona and the associated difficulties in chip production (delivery bottlenecks and lack of raw materials) would scourge the gaming community worldwide so severely. But in the end it was the crypto boom and the at times highly profitable mining that made graphics cards an absolute scarce commodity. The consequence: a few customers are still waiting for their RTX 3080, which they ordered for the 2020 launch. But that should now be over: COMPUTER BILD reveals what the future of graphics cards has in store for you.
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Graphics card prices are normalizing
The crypto market collapsed significantly after strong fluctuations, and panic sales made the situation difficult for speculators and miners. But Ethereum mining with graphics cards has lost profitability. The result: graphics cards such as the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 are available in stores again and prices are falling. A few weeks ago, various dealers were charging around 1,400 euros for an RTX 3070. That is three times more than the manufacturer’s recommended retail price. Today you can get models for less than 1,000 euros. We assume that prices will normalize over the course of the year. But what if the crypto market picks up again? That could happen, but the mining of Ethereumis regulated in an update, which means that profitability remains low even at a high rate. This should make graphics cards of no interest to prospectors.
Excellent! Nvidia will probably go one better at the end of 2021
In June 2022, Nvidia delivered an improved version of the current RTX 3000 series, namely the RTX 3070 Ti and the 3080 Ti . “Super” versions of these graphics cards are currently being developed, at least if you believe documents leaked on Videocardz . A Lenovo laptop with a 3080 super chip is listed there, which confirms the rumor. If you look at the product range of the RTX-2000 series, it only seems logical that Nvidia will bring super variants of the current series onto the market – it is basically only a matter of time. Since the leak relates to a notebook, the question arises whether desktop versions will also be available. If you consider the period between the launch of the RTX 2080 Tiand the RTX 2080 Super (desktop) takes as a guide, then a super version of the 3080 is no longer expected this year. We’re guessing the first quarter of 2022.
Ampere Next: RTX 4000 as early as 2022?
As part of the GTC 2021, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced a lot of new technology. Among other things, own CPUs for supercomputers and hardware components that help in the development of artificial intelligence. But the roadmap for the desktop graphics cards is more interesting for us. Two successor generations can be seen on it. Ampere Next (RTX 4000) should be released in the second half of 2022, Ampere Next Next (RTX 5000) should come onto the market in 2024. In between (2023) there will probably be Super or Ti variants of the RTX 4000 series. Not much is currently known about technical details, but experts assume that the chips are manufactured using a five-nanometer manufacturing process. The effect: less energy consumption, more performance.
And AMD? Big Navi faster than Ampere Next?
New workstation GPUs (W6800 and W6600), mid-range graphics cards (RX 6600, RX 6500) and a water-cooled RX 6900 XT, which should only be available in finished PCs – AMD currently has no more in the pipeline, at least not officially. But behind the scenes things are simmering. A leaker revealed that RDNA3 and Zen 4 (the Big Navi and Ryzen 5000 successors) will be unleashed on the gambling guild as early as the fourth quarter of 2022. The RX-7000 generation is rumored to have the code name Navi31 and is also manufactured using a five-nanometer manufacturing process. The only question that remains is who will bring the chips to market first. AMD, Nvidia or an old friend?
A new player in the game: Intel Xe
Not only AMD and Nvidia have a hardware battle, chip giant Intel also wants to assert itself in the graphics card segment. Intel has tried graphics cards several times, but failed every time. Now it’s time for another attack, as Intel has won over former AMD graphics boss Raja Koduri. First fruits: The Intel DG1 chip, which we know in laptops under the name Xe. The Iris Xe Max should have a larger memory interface. For desktop users, the Xe-HPG-DG2 chip (High-Performance Gaming Discrete Grapics 2) is much more exciting: Videocardz reports on different versions of the chip. Among other things via DG2-128, DG2-512 and DG2-960. The latter is supposed to poach in the high-end segment, the DG2-512 chip is allowed to compete with the RTX 3060 Ti and the smallest attacks the entry-level class.
A leak from the well-known hardware speaker APISAK confirms this assessment. This means that the information about the upcoming Intel graphics cards is condensing; we expect the products to be presented soon.
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