In a new study posted on Graphic Speak (opens in new tab), analyst Dr. Jon Peddie shared some data on how the best graphics cards have gotten more expensive over the years. The article also looks at the current steep pricing for AMD and Nvidia’s latest graphics cards, with a prediction that the prices will eventually drop when stores have excess inventory.

The average selling pricing for discrete graphics cards increased exponentially since the Ethereum mining boom. As a result, miners started to stock up on GPUs, which led to a shortage and higher prices. The situation worsened when the pandemic hit, causing the supply chain to collapse and depleting graphics card inventory. Scalpers took advantage of the situation and used bots to buy up every graphics card to flip them on eBay later.

Peddie’s data showed that the high demand and mining contributed to high prices. The most significant increase in the AIB average selling price happened between 2019 and 2020. Remember that the first cases of coronavirus emerged in China back in December 2019, and everything went downhill from there. For comparison, the AIB average selling price in 2019 was a little over $400, whereas it almost hit $700 in 2020, roughly a 75% price increase. Pricing continued to escalate between 2020 and 2021, but the margin was substantially lower.

AIB GPU Average Selling Price (Image credit: Jon Peddie Research)

PC gaming and mining AIBs had priced their products two to three times more expensive than mobile graphics cards. However, Peddie believes that the supply shortage isn’t the reason for the hike in PC AIB pricing; instead, the blame is on the miners and scalpers.