PC enthusiasts and gamers who have been missing that one graphics processing unit (GPU) for their build may want to make their purchase now, as predictions of another price inflation due to cryptocurrency have surfaced.
Website PC Gamer has suggested that once again, there may be another shortage in mid-range GPUs due to the bulk buying of cryptocurrency miners for their mining PCs. This will consequently cause inflated GPU prices in order to preserve stocks and supplies, which happened to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Radeon RX 480/580 GPUs, which are favored by cryptocurrency miners. Even weaker video cards from AMD, such as the RX 570, peaked in at an income rate of $5 per day, per GPU.
It can be recalled that the prices for the said mid-range cards from AMD nearly doubled at one point this year due to the massive demand for the GPU coupled with the limited supply. With the Ethereum cryptocurrency slowing down, regular non-mining consumers have been cut some slack as the prices have started becoming regular. However, this may be short-lived as Bitcoin, another cryptocurrency has began rising in value once again, meaning stocks of GPUs will be in demand once more by miners.
While GPUs are not particularly efficient at mining Bitcoin since this currency relies more on the central processing unit (CPU), there are alternative cryptocurrencies which utilize the GPU and may follow Bitcoin's continuous increase in value. This means PC owners who just want GPUs for gaming or work may have another rough year in 2018, as cryptocurrency miners might exhaust the GPU supplies once again.
Stil, this is not necessarily a predicament for GPU manufacturers AMD and NVIDIA, as cryptocurrency mining actually boosts their revenue and sales. Hopefully, this gives them more incentives to make mining-exclusive GPUs so that miners will not have to opt for regular GPUs.
These, however, are just predictions, whether or not there will be another GPU price inflation remains to be seen in the coming months.
