Video card sales are 65% cheaper in online stores in Asia. The suspension of mining in many Chinese provinces has affected the demand for GPUs.
After the restrictions by the Chinese government towards the mining of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the Asian nation, the prices of graphics cards begin to show a decrease. During 2020 and in recent months, the lack of stock had brought significant increases in its value.
According to a publication by the South China Morning Post this Monday, June 21, the price of these units has crumbled down more than 65% on electronic sales platforms. The main reason for such decrease is the lower demand from cryptocurrency miners, an activity whose fury had left the gaming sector, the first clients of manufacturing companies such as Nvidia or AMD, out of supply.
According to the quoted outlet, the entry-level Nvidia Quadro P1000 went from $ 463 to $ 375.In a very similar way, a more advanced card like the Asus RTX3060 dropped from $ 2,086 to $ 726 in just a month. . Although the price might vary in other platforms outside the Asian continent, such as Amazon, in the same way, the prices tend to go down in these as well.
While this situation could be advantageous for miners, who could obtain the necessary hardware for their mining equipment at a lower cost, the reality is that this perspective is not very pleasing for this sector in China. In recent weeks the authorities have applied a series of strong restrictions in many areas of the country that operate cryptocurrency mining procedures.
So the mining power (also known as the hash rate) has suffered an important decrease. A total 57% hash rate could have been lost as a consequence of the five Chinese provinces that stopped mining activity in their territory.
GPU Makers Remain Cornered and Concerned by Miners and Gamers
In addition to creating a historical peak in the prices of graphic cards, the unprecedented demand for these products has generated during the past year and the current, a lot of struggles for manufacturing companies, which had to find new ways to satisfy an immense niche and in expansion like miners without neglecting their longtime customers, gamers.
The Nvidia Company launched an exclusive model for Ethereum mining, which was called CMP HX. Its main competitor, AMD, also made the same move with the update of the Navi 12 model.
According to Nvidia, CMPs do not count on graphics support (there are no video outputs), which permits to improve airflow during mining so that they “can be more densely packed”, that is, stacked together. They also work with lower frequencies and voltages.
Finally, another measure that Nvidia had applied was to limit the hash rate for mining of some of its newer boards, such as the RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080, to limit its use for the proper launching of video games, which was its original purpose.
By: Jenson Nuñez
