Video card makers cutting prices to clear inventory

Industry sources told DigiTimes that graphics card vendors are cutting prices in effort to clear excess inventory. The move is expected to increase revenue, at the expense of profitability. The site notes the inventory digestion process may take longer than expected, citing a timetable of mid to even late 2019:

Graphics card vendors had taken in large volumes of GPU inventory from AMD and Nvidia in the past six months, but demand for graphics card has started picking up recently thanks to their price-cut campaigns. So far, graphics cards of Radeon RX580 and below grades have seen their prices slipping quickly, while those of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 and 1070 have also been dipping significantly, the sources said.

Although Nvidia, AMD and graphics card vendors are expected to see rising revenues, profits will be unsatisfactory and may even be halved from previous high levels. The inventory digestion process may not end until mid- to late-2019, the sources noted.

AMD is also under heavy pressure to lower its pricing. DigiTimes reports graphics card makers in the AMD camp are facing strong competition from NVIDIA's new cards and the price cuts on the latter's previous-gen models.

For consumers, this is good news as a lot of parts have gotten a lot cheaper over the past year. Video card pricing got insane during the cryptocurrency mining boom, but that's now largely a thing of the past. Furthermore, pricing of DRAM and SSDs is also pretty favorable right now.