GPU Price rising.. should I upgrade?

AscendedJoy

Hi everyone, I've been thinking about upgrading to more newer GPU cards, as my GTX 660 is having hard time dealing with iray renders.

However, as you might know -this is really not a great time to buy new GPU cards, with the rise of bitcoin and etherium and whatnot..

Prices are rocketing high on Nvidia as well, although they are not popular as much as AMD, which are miners' preference.

Should I even think of upgrading at this point? And I have very limited budget to upgrade - Does GTX1050 Ti have enough muscle for me to consider getting this card?

At least it's got 4GB of VRAM, whereas my 660 got only 2GB...

 

Any inputs are appreciated. Thank you!

tj_1ca9500b

These mining bubbles have historically burst after a couple of months, due to various factors.  While there isn't any reason I can think of why this bubble shouldn't burst either, it's hard to really know.

I'm sure that AMD and Nvidia have probably boosted their production at least slightly to accomodate the extra demand, and I've seen mention of 'mining specific' cards being developed on the fast track, but any such boost to production has several months of lead time.  And if the demand doesn't go away, you know that Team Red and Team Green will want to take advantage of it.

So, short form, if you aren't in an immediate hurry, you may be able to wait this out.  Of course, there's always the chance that the higher prices will become the 'new normal' but with brand new card designs coming online in the coming months (Vega, etc). there's a very good chance that prices will 'normalize'again in the coming months.  Maybe not as cheap as they were before, but cheaper than the levels that they are rising to now.

The LAST thing that Team Red and Team Green want is to have NO stock on hand around the November/December holidays.  Historically, about 1/3 of all retail sales happen in those two months.

It's hard to know for sure, but hopefully this helps give you a bit of perspective.  I'm sure others, who have had more direct experience with these bubbles, will chime in with their thoughts as well.

nomad-ads_8ecd56922e

I myself have been looking at variations of the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 video card, of which various models and makes of keep flitting back and forth between available and unavailable new on Amazon, and which tend to be around US$270, but I'm also also sorta wishing I could afford the 8GB version, which tend to be more like US$500+.  How much higher are those priices than they should be right now, due to this buy-it-for-bitcoin-mining frenzy?  And how far through that "couple of months" bubble are we right now?  oO   Should I wait a month and see if the prices on these cards cut in half or something?  oo

tj_1ca9500b

This should answer the first part of your question:

http://www.pcgamer.com/it-looks-like-cryptocurrency-mining-is-driving-up-nvidia-graphics-card-prices-too/

Looking for an article on how long these situations generally last now...

Edit: OK, just came across this article that indicates a massive crash in Ether prices.  This could just be a blip, but dropping from $357 to $13 is a very significant drop...

http://www.digigold.info/13-ether-prices-plunge-in-gdax-exchange-flash-crash/

The other exchanges are still trading at $300, as of press time for the article linked above, but these things can move in waves...

Maybe this is a sign that the bubble is bursting?  I"m sure we'll find out soon enough...

AscendedJoy

Yeah, this cryptocurrency definitely have made things unexpectable. Unless that bubble burst.. who knows what's gonna happen to the GPU market price.. hmm

But your insight is totally right. I better should wait and see... it's bit pricey to get even at right now. Wait for bubble to burst...

tj_1ca9500b

So, the Etherium market apparently recovered after that flash crash on the GDAX that I mentioned in my last post.  This link currently has a quick blurb about the details.

https://ethereumprice.org/

Short form is that a whale with a bunch of etherium sold off his stockpile all at once, temporarily driving the price down in the process.  There are a number of such whales apparently, so when they decide to cash in, we may see similar crashes.

My guess is that Etherium will need to drop very significantly below $300 more before the pressures on the GPU market let up.  Not sure what the current average 'break even' point is... it's anyone's guess when(if?) that'll happen.

tj_1ca9500b

So, the Etherium market apparently recovered after that flash crash on the GDAX that I mentioned in my last post.  This link currently has a quick blurb about the details.

https://ethereumprice.org/

Short form is that a whale with a bunch of etherium sold off his stockpile all at once, temporarily driving the price down in the process.  There are a number of such whales apparently, so when they decide to cash in, we may see similar crashes.

My guess is that Etherium will need to drop very significantly below $300 more before the pressures on the GPU market let up.  Not sure what the current average 'break even' point is... it's anyone's guess when(if?) that'll happen.