Gamers who want to buy mid-range graphics card processors (GPU) may have to wait until December, as the cryptocurrency mining craze will not be slowing down until the end of the year.
According to Vijay Rakesh, a chip analyst at Mizuho Securities, the demand for cryptocurrency is still very strong and will ultimately lead to better sales in GPUs for both Nvidia and AMD, as their processors are used for mining in-demand cryptocurrencies like Etherium and Bitcoin.
This mining, however, has led to a shortage in the supply of GPUs since a lot of cryptocurrency miners are buying the said PC components in bulk, causing inflation of GPU prices. Many PC gamers have had to buy GPUs at higher rates than the suggested retail price.
That said, Rakesh suggested that the GPU market might soon return to normal in the final quarter of the year since China has recently imposed a ban on cryptocurrency. This could also address the shortage of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which is used for the video memory of GPUs.
The prediction that cryptocurrency mining will slow down by the end of the year has also been proclaimed by Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson. Wilson believed that the cryptocurrency market will not only slow down, but it will also crash.
As reported by CoinDesk, he said, "I am certain the big crash will happen. I don't know when it will happen and I think it may be some time before it does." He then advised miners to diversify their investments, as the market crash for cryptocurrency may be inevitable.
Still, despite the predicted normalization in the GPU market, buyers should expect the prices of Nvidia GPUs to continue increasing until the end of the year. This is also due to the global DRAM shortage that will affect Nvidia and its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners, further increasing the GPU prices by about 10 percent to compensate for the limited stocks.
It is worth noting that the cryptocurrency mining craze has caused the price of GPUs to increase by as much as 25 percent in the past six months.
PC enthusiasts and gamers who have wanted to build a new machine may want to hold off until December when cryptocurrency mining is expected to lessen.
