Nvidia has announced its plans to increase production and supply for the GeForce RTX 3060 series graphics card in July 2021, following the news that older RTX 2000 series GPUs would have their supply cut to meet the demands of the newer Ampere hardware.
We're also seeing prices for GPUs finally starting to come down after months of inflation thanks to China implementing a crackdown on mining activity in a fresh blow to crypto-miners in the country. Given the RTX 3060 was coveted by Cryptominers for its affordable price (after the anti-mining hash rate limiter had been circumvented, which didn't take long to crack), this could mean the budget-friendly GPU will finally become more accessible to gamers.
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The light at the end of the tunnel?
It's been reported the price of graphics cards in China has fallen by as much as two-thirds, with a notable price drop including an Asus RTX 3060 GPU listing on Tmall (Alibaba) going from a princely 13,499 yuan (around $2,100) back in May, down to 4,699 yuan (around $730) right now, a 65% drop. It's certainly not back to where we should be, but the improvement is certainly getting our hopes up for further price drops.
Nvidia never released a Founders Edition of the GeForce RTX 3060, but placed a recommended price of $329 (about £240, AU$430), something we haven't actually seen since the card was released back in February 2021. It's normal for third-party manufactures to price their products above the MSRP, though the global shortage and insanely high demand resulted in prices skyrocketing.
Due to the RTX 3060 selling out the minute it hits the shelves, scalpers also took advantage of the situation, using bots to snap up the little stock available to resell on auction sites like eBay for a hefty markup. On subsequent GPU releases, we've witness folk queueing around the block for hours to get a chance at buying a new Ampered card due to the demand massively outweighing the available inventory.
The combination of increased availability and (hopefully) decreased demand from Chinese crypto miners could finally be some good news for gamers trying to buy one of the latest graphics cards.
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Via WCCFTech
