Is It Safe to Buy Graphics Cards Today?

A lot of tech gurus and PC enthusiasts say 2019 is the best time to buy graphics cards. And they’re right about that. After the Bitcoin mining trend died down in early 2018, graphics card prices became significantly low – almost lower than their SRP. And with the announcement of Nvidia and AMD introducing new series to their lineups, it’s to share some information as to why 2019 is the best time to buy graphics cards now.

2017 was the Worst Time to Buy a Graphics Card

Remember when Bitcoins were such a trending topic 2 years ago? That was the time the Bitcoin price peaked. From late 2017 up to early 2018, the currency exchange for Bitcoins were very high. And, of course, the media began covering the story. So, how did Bitcoin investors get their resources? Through Bitcoin mining. But, in order to mine Bitcoins you need one essential equipment: a very powerful PC – one that’s enough to play advanced games 10 years from now while having 10 tabs of Google Chrome up and leaving Adobe Premiere Pro open, all while maintaining at steady temperatures.

Once people found out the secret to getting the cryptocurrency, everyone wanted a piece of the pie. Suddenly, everyone – even the non-PC gamers – began buying the most expensive graphics cards in the market. Nvidia and AMD were panicking since there was more demand than supply. So, they did what the PC market has never done before: inflate the price of graphics cards. It inflated so much, the prices were triple the SRP. Even a supposedly cheap graphics card such as the GTX 580 was very expensive. Gamers who have saved up all these years felt frustrated and full of regrets.Fortunately for them, that didn’t last long.

In early 2018, the Bitcoin value began crashing down (of course, you know how oligarchs do when their own system is compromised). Not long after, people began to stop mining for Bitcoins. Mining was gruesome – not in a physical sense, but in a financial way. First, Bitcoin mining takes a lot of energy at home. It literally sucks the power, resulting in higher monthly electricity bills. Second, miners needed to overclock their PCs in order to get the most quantity of Bitcoins. But you know how overclock does when the PC is beyond the limit for an excessive amount of time. Some PCs break down while others burn.

Many people thought it was too risky to invest in Bitcoins at that point. After all, the expenses would be more than what they would gain should they have farmed all the Bitcoins they needed. And so, people moved on. Major graphics card manufacturers like Nvidia, AMD, MSI and Palit began taking a lot of time to create and improve their products.

2018 was the recovery year for PC hardware prices. It wasn’t just graphics cards that inflated during the Bitcoin trend; RAM, CPU, Motherboards and coolers had a price increase too.

The Right Time to Purchase Graphics Cards and Other PC Parts

As they say, “There’s no time like the present.” And if you’re presently reading this, I’ll tell you this right now: go out there and buy the PC specs that you need. We are currently living at an awkward point where GPU brands are dishing out the latest – and probably the last – graphics cards in the known series such as the RTX 2000 series and the Radeon RX 5000 series. This is because both Nvidia and AMD have announced new products into the graphics family.

AMD announced the Navi series to the public – a more sustainable and efficient GPU while under a reasonable price. As for Nvidia, they publicly told in E3 that they will release a new Super series soon – both set to have GTX and RTX versions.

When it comes to product purchasing, there’s one thing you should put in mind. Once a brand announces a new intellectual property, all previous existing product prices will become permanently lower. That means the likes of the RTX 2060 (click the link for the full review: https://www.pcguide.com/reviews/best-rtx-2060/)i and GeForce 1080 Ti will be permanently lower than their original prices from last year. Before Cyberpunk 2077 and the next Grand Theft Auto comes out, you better get your PC ready because, by that time, Nvidia and AMD will release their newest graphics cards.

Other PC Hardware Will Have a Price Drop Soon

If you’ve been eyeing on that 8th Generation Intel i7 and ASUS ROG motherboard, expect a large price drop within 2019 to 2020. Although, RAM will most likely retain its price unless a new DDR4 8GB of RAM comes out or 16GB becomes cheaper. Of course, let’s not forget about the internal drives too. If you’re planning on getting a 1TB HDD, it will definitely drop its price this holiday season. Same goes for SSD. If we’re lucky, even the 1TB SSD will have a permanent price nerf too.

Make sure you plan everything for this year. Because once the 2020 games release, it will be a new set of fresh parts for the glorious PC gaming community.