GPU prices suddenly tripled about 4-5 years ago, due to price gouging that was enabled by mining, scalping, and LLM demand. The pandemic made it worse. Prices have come down a little since then, but nowhere near sane ranges.
GPU makers haven’t ramped up capacity to meet the increased demand, and greedflation doesn’t go away easily.
Factory recertified is probably the way to go if you want powerful hardware for (relatively) cheap, new gpu prices just don’t make sense anymore. Even back when RX 6x50 refreshes came out shit wasn’t so cartoonishly expensive
This is what I did with a Radeon RX 480, which still served me well until I upgraded to 1440p about a year ago. The price was good, and although one of the fans was defective, a replacement fan was quickly shipped and easily installed.
I distinctly remember buying a Radeon Vega 56 in-person at Microcenter on launch day because I must have been worried about price, availability, or both. That was seven years ago.
(That and my 9070 XT – also bought in-person on launch day for MSRP – are the only GPUs I’ve bought in the last decade.)
GPU prices suddenly tripled about 4-5 years ago, due to price gouging that was enabled by mining, scalping, and LLM demand. The pandemic made it worse. Prices have come down a little since then, but nowhere near sane ranges.
GPU makers haven’t ramped up capacity to meet the increased demand, and greedflation doesn’t go away easily.
Factory recertified is probably the way to go if you want powerful hardware for (relatively) cheap, new gpu prices just don’t make sense anymore. Even back when RX 6x50 refreshes came out shit wasn’t so cartoonishly expensive
I got an open box 7900xtx from microcenter for a pretty good price. No regrets.
Wish they were more widespread. Closest to me is… 800 miles away? Was nice when I was near one.
That’s a sign you need to move ;)
I agree though
I mean my new 7900xtx was $1k, but I still think it was a pretty good price compared to the 9060 and the 9070.
Nice. I think I paid 750 +tax
Shame microcenter doesn’t ship GPUs, they’re only reservable for in-store pickup.
This is what I did with a Radeon RX 480, which still served me well until I upgraded to 1440p about a year ago. The price was good, and although one of the fans was defective, a replacement fan was quickly shipped and easily installed.
I distinctly remember buying a Radeon Vega 56 in-person at Microcenter on launch day because I must have been worried about price, availability, or both. That was seven years ago.
(That and my 9070 XT – also bought in-person on launch day for MSRP – are the only GPUs I’ve bought in the last decade.)