Cyprus graphics card market mirrors international trends

Recent developments have seen one major manufacturer’s high-end graphics cards becoming easier to find, with the increased availability being reflected in a gradual drop and stabilisation in terms of their prices. Cyprus follows this trend.

According to figures by German computer market analysis website 3DCenter, domestic retailers marked graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD up by as much as 304 per cent between the middle of May and the first week of July.

However, since then, the average price for some graphics cards such as Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3970 fell significantly, with the cheapest cards available dropping from €1,498 to €799. Conversely, equivalent AMD models are refusing to budge in neither price nor scarcity, with some models actually gaining in terms of average retail price.

“While AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards are rising slightly in price, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards are going the opposite way – and are dropping slightly, but steadily, in terms of price,” 3DCenter noted.

“There is now even a noticeable difference in the respective price exaggeration, according to which Nvidia does noticeably better than AMD,” the website added.

A quick look at some of the computing components retailers in Cyprus shows that the domestic market, as small as it is, is reflecting international trends.

For example, one Cypriot retailer is offering the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Edition graphics card with 10 GB of memory for €1,595.94 including VAT. A price falling within the range of €1199 and €1848 observed among German retailers, a market similar to other mature European Union countries.

In terms of AMD and the upward price trend, the same Cypriot retailer is offering the AMD Radeon RX6900 XT 16GB graphics card for €2,797.73. This goes beyond the average price for the series observed in Germany, where the upper price range for this model hovers near the €2,500 mark.

However, even among the progressively cheaper and easier to find Nvidia graphics cards, market analysts still note that the prices observed are somewhat inflated.

“Although the prices of Nvidia’s 30 series graphics cards are still 40-45 per cent above MSRP, as can be seen from the graph above, if the downward trend continues then it may be possible we will see retail prices around MSRP for Nvidia cards around Christmas time,” PC gamer specialists WePC said.

“Of course, there is no guarantee that this will occur, and there is a possibility that prices will plateau and not fall any further, though, with the increasing crypto clampdown in China, among other factors, it’s a definite possibility,” the site added.

The reference to the cryptocurrency restrictions in China is directly linked to the availability and pricing of graphics cards as the Bitcoin boom and the resulting need for high-end computing components is one of the major reasons behind the scarcity and price inflation.

“With Ether mining difficulty also down almost 8 per cent, it appears GPU mining interest is also at a slower lower ebb,” wrote crypto industry news website Cointelegraph.

“Overall, these factors could trigger decreased demand for already scarce graphic card hardware, to the benefit of non-crypto mining GPU users like gamers,” the website added.