Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

It is no secret that the graphics card market is not as expected.

Not long ago, Jon Peddie Research (JPR) released the latest GPU market data statistics report, showing that total shipments of desktop independent graphics cards in the third quarter of 2022 hit a 20-year low. Specifically, in the third quarter, the industry shipped only 6.9 million desktop independent graphics cards, together with notebooks alone, the total shipment was about 14 million yuan, down 42% from the same period last year.

And Nvidia as the largest player in the global graphics card market, life is of course difficult, the demand side is facing a lot of pressure. Reflected in the capital markets, Nvidia's Q2 and Q3 performance continued to decline in fiscal 2022, and its share price suffered an epic decline, which had fallen nearly 60 per cent from its peak of $350 as of January 10, 2023.

In the past two years, the graphics card market has indeed experienced ups and downs. First, during the epidemic, due to the increase in demand for home entertainment and the upsurge of the cryptocurrency market, desktop independent graphics cards were once in short supply, and the price also doubled or tripled. With the gradual opening of the global epidemic, the mining boom of cryptocurrency has faded, the demand for games is gradually saturated, and the demand for desktop independent graphics cards has dropped sharply. The graphics cards that used to be hoarded by mine owners and manufacturers have now become a hot potato in their hands.

Even Yingweida CEO Huang Renxun said in an interview: "We are surprised that the encryption hangover lasted longer than we expected, but it will pass eventually."

In the long run, it is not surprising that the graphics card market has this day, it is like a painful period during the transition of graphics cards. After all, players, miners kill crazy, N card A card has always been a card difficult to get the era, has been unable to go back.

Without the mention of graphics cards in the "mining" business, it is hard not to think of the two-year mining boom. The mining industry is expected to increase revenue by about $18 billion a year from 2020, according to the Everbright Securities report. The high profits are like Pandora's magic box, attracting countless people eager to get rich overnight into the mining industry.

The rapid outbreak of cryptocurrency has led to the second outbreak of the GPU graphics card market. GPU is characterized by simple and rough operations, and it can make a big difference, whether in the processing of game images or in the field of mining where a single algorithm is constantly implemented. In an instant, the graphics card became the miner's favorite production tool.

In those days, Nvidia and AMD shipped more than 20 million graphics cards each quarter. Even so, graphics cards are still in short supply, and prices are rising. For example, the official guidance price of 3080 TI released by Nvidia in 2021 was 8, 000 or 9, 000 yuan, but after the influx of miners, the price was hyped to 20, 000 to 30, 000 yuan, and the whole market was feverish and abnormal.

When the mine accident occurs, not a single graphics card is innocent, and no graphics card can survive. In fact, since March 2022, there has been news of the merger of Ethernet Square, and the graphics card market is showing a posture of coming rain. In September, the other boot finally landed, the merger of Tai Fong was completed, and the mining rules changed. Compared with the previous pure arithmetic power, the income can now be obtained in the form of verification nodes through the pledge of etheric coins.

The graphics card, which was originally used as a mining artifact, can no longer be used to mine etheric coins, but can only be left in the corner to eat ash-garbage. Mining is a 007 type of work, which requires the graphics card to work at full load 24 hours a day for 7 days. if it is in a poor heat dissipation and humid environment for a long time, it is difficult to guarantee the life of the video card. Besides, miners only care about whether graphics cards can be calculated, not the "materials" of graphics cards. For gamers, these "mine cards" with shoddy radiators and lack of interface slots are too simple.

Of course, mine owners do not think so, at that time bid up the price to buy graphics cards can not be thrown in their hands, so a flood of graphics cards from the mine, the second-hand graphics card market is mixed. Some second-street traders, they will recover a large number of ore cards from the mine, rinse them with tap water, dry them, and sell them on the platform after a simple test. and write "no dismantling for self-use", "color 99 new", "self-use replacement" and other labels to confuse buyers.

Xianyu screenshot and in order to sell the graphics card as soon as possible, the price is also "volume" up, the original price was fried to tens of thousands of 30 series graphics card, now can start with a few hundred yuan, from the sky-high price to the price of cabbage, the price trust system directly collapsed.

It has to be said that the impact of mining cards into the market, affecting the entire graphics card market ecology.

Game players wait and see with money, as cryptocurrency miners withdraw from the game, players should "pick up the plate". After all, during the mining boom, hundreds of thousands of people still have vivid memories of booking for graphics cards, but this is not the case. After the miners left the game, the game users were also obsessed.

Why is this? The most obvious reason is that chip manufacturers' sales strategy is still to pursue a high premium, the so-called graphics card price return to the level is really Schrodinger's "level". According to Jon Peddie Research, the highest number of graphics cards shipped in recent years was in the third quarter of 2017, when the GTX 10 series was sold. Specifically, the GTX 1080 TI retails for $699, the GTX 1080 for $599, and the GTX 1070 TI for $379.

Take a look at Nvidia's recently launched 40 series, which costs $1599 for RTX 4090, $1199 for RTX 4080, and $799 for RTX 4070 TI. In just a few years, the price of Nvidia graphics cards has risen by at least 100%, which means that a new graphics card can now cover at least two cards.

JD.com screenshot for Invid and AMD, shipments hit a 20-year low. If you want to keep your overall revenue unchanged, you must raise the price of graphics cards and increase profit margins. Once two cards made a share of money, now you need one card to earn two copies of money. But this is undoubtedly a vicious circle, the higher the price of graphics cards, the less players want to place orders, and fewer buyers, graphics card manufacturers have to raise prices in order to maintain expected revenue.

What makes gamers even more dissatisfied is that after the graphics card has been updated in recent years, the performance has not changed much. At the end of 2019, on the eve of the mine tide, GTX1650 SUPER, which sold for just over 1,000 yuan, scored 4701 points in the 3DMark TimeSpy project. More than three years have passed, and now more than a thousand yuan can buy AMD Radeon RX6500XT. Its running score is 4973, only a surprising change of more than 270points.

When it comes to the price range of 2500 yuan, you can buy RTX 2060 SUPER three years ago, with a running score of 8780. Now you can buy RTX 3060 12G at the same price, with a running score of 8738. Not only has there been no promotion at all, it is also likely to be a mine card baptized by the mine tide.

A few months before RTX 2060, Nvidia released RTX 4080 12GB, which almost took on the most abuse since the launch of the 40-series graphics card. The number of CUDA cores is more than 55% less than that of eldest brother RTX 4090, and the apparent memory width has shrunk to less than 3060 TI. The official domestic price of this super castrated graphics card is as high as 7199 yuan. Under the storm of public opinion, Nvidia urgently withdrew the graphics card less than a month after the press conference, which was the first time in Nvidia's history.

In the face of these coquettish operations, gamers choose to vote directly with their feet-not to buy. As long as the money is in your own hands, it will not become the "leek" of the graphics card manufacturer.

If the "prosperity" of the graphics card had not been the cause of the mining boom in the previous two years, the graphics card would not have had such a big market. Now that the market is not as expected, it may just be the fading of abnormal prosperity.

Graphics card is almost the exclusive product of the game, after all, the mention of graphics card will be associated with its game performance. More than a decade ago, PC games began to develop rapidly, and the performance of graphics cards determines whether players can get a good game experience. In the early days, the game technology changed rapidly, the picture progress was basically one level a year, and the resolution and refresh rate of the display continued to improve. For example, "isolated Island crisis" is called "graphics card killer" because at that time, almost no computer could make it full of picture quality special effects, and graphics cards were easy to overload and smoke.

"isolated island crisis" but now the situation is very different, with the rapid development of graphics card performance, there are no games can be called "graphics card killer", which means that users' demand for high-performance graphics cards is gradually declining. GTX 1060 launched by Nvidia in 2016 has become a first-generation god card because of its high performance-to-price ratio, and still occupies the top two in the share of Steam graphics cards.

In other words, a 1060 performance graphics card can meet the player's game use for more than 5 years, which is not good news for the new graphics card manufacturers who push it every year.

In retrospect, Nvidia's gross profit margin has soared from nearly 40% to 65% over the years. With the help of a large number of mineral cards, Nvidia has also made a lot of money, with a market capitalization of more than $500 billion in 2021, creating the illusion that one card is hard to get and the graphics card market is booming. On a certain level, it is the collusion of Nvidia and the miners that led to the sky-high price of graphics cards, and ordinary users have never been able to buy cards.

Behind the turmoil in the global graphics card market is the transformation and change of the market. After the mining tide fades and the game market gradually becomes saturated, the graphics card market is no longer popular, and it is a natural phenomenon that the growth rate continues to slow down. As for how long this process will last, it is still unknown, waiting for the next wave to come.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: zinc Finance (ID:xincaijing), author: Chen Yan, Editor: Dafeng

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