Why it matters: Once again, graphics card prices and availability have improved in Germany and Austria, giving consumers more cause for optimism. Products are still above MSRP, of course, but the rate of improvement over the last two months has been steep.
German site 3DCenter in June reported that the average price of RTX 3000-series cards in Germany had fallen from three times above MSRP to just under double, while the Radeon RX 6000 line was down from 114% above MSRP in early May to 81%. This month has seen more price drops for both companies' products, falling to 53% above MSRP.
The graph illustrates the declining price of cards since peaking in May. The China crackdown on crypto mining that impacted Bitcoin and Ethereum was the beginning of the fall. With miners in the country selling their used cards in bulk, the average selling price of Nvidia's and AMD's offerings in China has dropped 45% over the last two months.
Another factor has been the introduction of Nvidia's Lite Hash Rate (LHR) versions of its RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti, combined with increased production and more anti-scalping measures at physical retailers.
3DCenter reports that availability of the cards keeps improving. The only Ampere product not to receive a 4/5 rating for availability is the RTX 3060 Ti (3/5), which continues to be in high demand. It's a similar story with RDNA 2: only the Radeon RX 6800/6800 XT failed to receive 4/5.
Card prices are now at their lowest since the start of February. Given the rate of decline, a return to normality in Germany and Austria---and the rest of the world, hopefully---might not be as far away as initially feared.