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Video card prices approaching sanity as crypto prices plunge
With Ethereum now trading at under $1100 as compared to its peak of over $4800, buying video cards to mine it is vastly less profitable than before. A lot of video card prices are now approaching MSRP, and some have even dropped below MSRP. Because parts of lineups of cards that are a year and a half old finally dropping below MSRP mere months before their successors launch counts as good news these days.
Still, the good news is that crypto prices are likely to keep dropping. I've been saying for quite some time now that the next recession would take down mined cryptocurrencies, and that seems to be on its way. With any luck, this will be the last big spike in video cards due to mined cryptocurrencies.
Of course, that's also what I thought in late 2018, when Ethereum had dropped to around $90 from its previous peak of around $1400. It's also what I thought in late 2014, when Litecoin dropped to $1.16 (note the decimal point) from its previous high of over $44. So I'm not willing to predict that this will be the last mining run on cryptocurrencies just yet. Neither of those drops had the benefit of a recession driving a stake through the heart of cryptocurrencies, however, which is something that we're likely to see soon.
We're likely to see a lot of used video cards show up for sale as miners look to clear inventories. Be cautious about potential damage to the cards, though, as they've likely been tortured with months or years of round-the-clock mining. Ethereum mining is very memory-heavy, so miners will sometimes underclock the GPU to save power, but overclock memory. That's less bad for the planet than the other way around, as it does mean lower energy usage, but a bad memory chip still means a card is useless. Unlike for CPU memory, you can't replace a GPU's memory.
Still, the good news is that crypto prices are likely to keep dropping. I've been saying for quite some time now that the next recession would take down mined cryptocurrencies, and that seems to be on its way. With any luck, this will be the last big spike in video cards due to mined cryptocurrencies.
Of course, that's also what I thought in late 2018, when Ethereum had dropped to around $90 from its previous peak of around $1400. It's also what I thought in late 2014, when Litecoin dropped to $1.16 (note the decimal point) from its previous high of over $44. So I'm not willing to predict that this will be the last mining run on cryptocurrencies just yet. Neither of those drops had the benefit of a recession driving a stake through the heart of cryptocurrencies, however, which is something that we're likely to see soon.
We're likely to see a lot of used video cards show up for sale as miners look to clear inventories. Be cautious about potential damage to the cards, though, as they've likely been tortured with months or years of round-the-clock mining. Ethereum mining is very memory-heavy, so miners will sometimes underclock the GPU to save power, but overclock memory. That's less bad for the planet than the other way around, as it does mean lower energy usage, but a bad memory chip still means a card is useless. Unlike for CPU memory, you can't replace a GPU's memory.
Comments
But, I coulda gotten in to bitcoin when the price collapsed to $4. Oh well....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
That.