Are PC GPUs soon to be more expensive due to new tax laws?

Three deathblows to the PC GPU market:

• Scalpers buying up already very limited stock
• Renewed interest in crypto currency mining
• New import tarifs

Maybe it just means that more people are gonna go for older gen cards. I don't know. Maybe just delay purchases for several weeks unless you use bots or get lucky with early pre-orders.

I'd like to score a RTX3000 card, and a PS5 too. But if I can't ... eh, not the end of the world.

More interest in something also means they'll ramp up production. At least that's what I'm being hopeful about in this situation.

I'll hold off to see if the tariff is revoked after the 20th. I have no problem playing on my current setup or consoles.

Hopefully. I'm getting price fixing / fake scarcity ram flashbacks though.

lol we are finally in a situation where SSD prices have become affordable and great price/space wise

And now we are in a situation where GPU prices absolutely suck, and if you look at what scalpers are asking... bwahahaha

https://stockx.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-graphics-card-founders-edition-black

$ 775. Ooof. So around $ 540. $ 200+ profit. Less warranty too I suppose, if the oem even acknowledges it.

People see scalping and bitcoin mining as easy money. That's why its such a popular, and easy, thing to do.

PC gaming is dead, if I was a millionaire I still would give in to those prices. I have always been pro equality, I think about others.

*not

People are under the impression they need the latest and greatest, and that's fine and all, but it's not necessary. The 1000 and 2000 series from Nvidia are still excellent cards, as are the equivalent from AMD.

Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but before my upgrade, my then six-year old GTX 980 was playing games like The Division 2, Far Cry 5, GTA V, and other demanding titles pretty well. 1080p with high-medium settings.

People need to remember that they play games for the games, the visuals are icing on the cake, and art direction is more important than technical showmanship (i.e. 4K, ray tracing, super-duper-quintuple-antialiasing or whatever...)

True and to an extreme end, I still enjoy even older games that don't need the fancy cards.

The older cards are harder to find and more expensive now too. My local Microcenter GPU stock is damn near empty and what they do have is market up. Same with Newegg.

With the latest rumors on Nvidia is thinking about releasing RTX "Super" 3080/3070 with all this crap going on with the price increase & scalpers/minors situation, I'll be surprise if those Super models will be within their MSRP range. And buying GPU from the black market/used market is out of the question as the sellers are jacking up the prices on last-gen GPU.

Looks like my trusty RTX 2070 will be staying with me until this blows. I'll just try to upgrade my CPU this year.

This is proof that budget PC's are hard to come by and kinda slowly dying if you ask me.

@mrbojangles25: well-said

Damn, you're right. That's depressing as hell :( Newegg selling a 1080 at $880 and a 1070 at $690...and they're out of stock.

I guess if you're buying a new card you really might as well get the newest iteration, they're essentially the same price. Maybe even cheaper if you're buying on a performance per dollar basis.

If Nvidia would release only a 'RTX3080' the situation would be worse with scalpers than if they flood the market with all kinds of different products:

RTX3090, RTX3080ti, RTX3080, RTX3070, RTX3070 super, RTX3060ti, RTX3060 ultra...

Scalpers don't know which is the most popular one so are not so sure what to buy.

Sure, they'll still buy up everything, as most of these are hot atm, but at least the situation is more confusing for them.

pc gaming is more expensice than ever

Doesn’t that tax law only affect the US?

I have always thought pc gamers are dumb for spending $1000 on a damn gpu. Theres so many nvidia fanboys out there too, all too happy to spend $1000, $2000 even $10000 for an over hyped piece of silicon. So no, this new tax won't affect anything, since these people will be all too happy to bend over for nvidia anyways. Let them pay the tax and the government collect some money to pay down our debt.

Thanks Trump.....

Is Canada free of this mess? I don't want to pay $1000 for a 3070

@Juub1990: probably will affect more than the US through some ripple effects on the WW market, though.

good question... I just ordered a 3070 from a site that claims it has a bunch coming in for $760 in the hope it actually arrives and I don't have to find out the answer

It's shitty, but at what point do we stop supporting underage/slave labor making our electronics?

When do we start coming off like selfish assholes complaining about consequences for this kind of behavior?

@hardwenzen: its getting a bit better, depending where you are.

I picked up a 3070 from a local shop, as they stopped putting stock numbers online.

The next day, someone I know who works there let me know that more had come in.

Meanwhile, the scalper prices on Kijiji have been falling steadily. Almost to the point where some are barely turning a profit.

Tell me though, what incentive do GPU manufacturers have for selling them at a lower cost if people are willing to buy the inflated price scalpers offer? People giving into scalpers giving the manufacturers ideas of charging more will have far more to do with raising the costs than any tariffs.

Besides, a little more costs is well worth it to not subsidize and reward slave/child labor that exists in China. IMO, any decent, self respecting western nation would ban trade with them completely until they cleaned up their act. There are other, more decent countries that can make things at low cost.

Nobody cares. They'd crack the whip themselves on those kids if it meant saving a few bucks. People who would put children through what China puts them through just to save a few dollars on their gaming hardware are the worst kind of people.

i wonder. if the 4k series will be 400 watts... base clock

@topgunmv:that's a fair point. So much of our consumer society has been built around getting the cheapest we can, regardless of how it came to pass, that we don't think about it often.

@eoten: I seriously doubt what you just said. Most people on here would NOT "crack the whip themselves" to save a buck. But getting "the cheapest" "the fastest" is so ingrained in our Western consumer culture, and we are so far removed from how the sausage is made, that I think most people don't know about half of the bad things that probably happened to ALLOW them to save a buck. And when we do learn of it it still feels somehow abstract and removed from our personal actions (even though mass spending changes could in fact exert a change for the better).

Anyway, just trying to be fair here - I don't think many people are thinking of these things and actively being malicious. It's good to bring up. I doubt it becomes more than abstract, though, for most of us.

I love animals, and I remember as a child wanting to be a vet. Now I had seen plenty of movies and shows with the grisly things that happen in veterinary practice, but I still hadn't INTERNALIZED it. It was gross imagery, but still somehow unreal and hypothetical. Then I interned under a farm vet for a few months, James Herriot style and holy shit reality was driven home. Dehorning cattle? Yeah... it's different when you are there. Birthing emergency? Yikes.

I think that's a similar challenge for things like these labor issues. You can be a good person and well-meaning and have a "negative reaction" to press and even real footage of child labor concerns. And still not really understand your connection and what it means until you wade into it and meet those people (which 99.99999% of us never will).

@xantufrog: Well now every single person reading this thread knows. How many people do you think will change their minds?

@eoten: I addressed that aspect of the issue in like 2/3 of my post. I'm guessing you (as I have) have saved quite a few bucks, even if often unwittingly, at the expense of others. It's a pretty big issue that probably isn't going to be solved by accusing everyone around you of just being greedy

@gtx021: if I catch you posting porn on here again, we're going to have a longer talk

Least of my concerns right now.

@xantufrog:

XD

@gtx021: Not even funny at all. Consider this a final warning and we're not joking!

AIBs might use this as justification for a price increase globally. But right now, supply shortages are more a cause of concern than the US tariffs for people outside the US.

Possibly. Either way, we need to stop riding China's d*ck. They buy way too much debt, and we see what happens.

It's certainly not going to be solved if people refuse to acknowledge the fact that China is a problem globally and within their own borders when it comes to human rights issues. People should care about that. If you want to make yourself feel better about rewarding that by claiming everyone does it, or that nothing can be done to stop it, then no, the problem will never get solved.

How America killed the PC market.

America? America is just one country that trades with China. How is it effecting anyone else? The only country with the power to effect PC part prices globally, is China themselves. That's the price you pay when you rely solely on one source for something like that. There isn't even a lot of electronics parts made in Taiwan or Korea anymore. How do you think that happened? And do you think it benefits the world for one entity to have full control over that market?

theverge

lol

I'm hoping things improve over time. I love PC, but I also want to see the US get away from an over-reliance on China to get what we need. As long as China manipulates currency, and publicly traded companies are legally obligated to make money for investors, corporations are going to take the bait.

I think companies expanding to other nations that need the industry (hopefully without abusing the labor) are going to have to be a necessity for supply anyway.

So i decided to check the prices for my 1070. I bought it on ebay from a miner back in 2018 for a ridiculously low price (like $230CAD) and had a year and a half warranty since its an EVGA card. Now they're going for $350CAD on average and plenty are selling over $400CAD🤣Now that's some messedup shiz.

@eoten: I don't know what you're problem is - no part of my post was trying to "make myself feel better" or say we sweep it under the rug because everyone does it and nothing could be done. I very clearly said it was a good point and a tough problem and offered a possible explanation for why it happens that is more nuanced than your "you're all trash" assessment.

Get over yourself. You deactivated spontaneously, and came back to this place on your own. Odd behavior if you think everyone here is so inferior.

Looks like I won't be building that new rig anytime soon at this rate. Cant find any high-end CPUs or GPUs in stock anywhere and if you are lucky enough to, they are way over MSRP.

@hardwenzen: Now imagine being one of those clowns who were selling their 2080 Ti's for 500 bucks back in August, lol.

Meanwhile i'm still waiting for my RTX 3080 i back-ordered nearly 4 months ago.
The launch price (~750 Euro) is still valid, but the long-ass waiting made me lose all the excitement...

Game over.

I hated that reality.

Something vaguely similar happened to me and it sucks.

Ignorance is truly bliss imo.

Did I say that? Where did I say that? You seem to enjoy putting words into my mouth. Did I say everyone was trash? No? I didn't. But I did say a lot of people do not care what goes on behind the scenes so long as they save a few bucks. And no, I don't think anyone on here was unaware that China uses child labor. That's fairly common knowledge.