Gadgetory

I remember when a 16 gigabyte RAM kit was under 100 US dollars of course comparable ddr3 kits were even cheaper the good old days we saw a gradual rise in prices until about September of last year at which point they spiked to uncharted territory in short a $100.00 kit of ddr4 back in 2016 cost nearly 240 dollars today just a bit outrageous if you ask me likewise and we've heard this one thousands of times before and you'll hear 2000 times from now the surge of graphics card demand on behalf of a little something called cryptocurrency has propelled prices into even four-figure territory that's thousands of dollars a GTX 1080 TI for example debuting in the middle of 2017 for roughly 700 USD now sells consistently for over 1,000 bucks keyword selling they are in fact leaving the shelves of these prices it's why they've remained high for this long if they weren't selling at those prices the prices would lower more on that right here but in this video I want to address yet another potential victim of the mining craze power supplies several messages including this one from Dave ream have flooded my inbox recently his says I recently noticed that MSRP s for a lot of power suppliers have shut up about 40 bucks to $100 I bought my EVGA 850 g3 last year in August for just over a hundred bucks now the MSRP is showing at 180 wonder what your thoughts are in this and if you have experienced this so let's try to answer this one our power supply is next wanna start first by thanking Dave and a few others in social media for actually asking this question it is 100% valid especially when seen in the context of this inhospitable PC build market PC part picker houses an excellent database of price trends across several years and this is where I'll go first to either confirm or deny this power supply claim now what you're looking at is a plot of several low wattage power supplies divided by efficiency the black line running through each graph indicates average price while the y and x axes indicate price and time respectively as we can see prices have remained relatively flat since about mid 2016 when this recording began keep in mind that this is the low wattage here so around 500 watts or so the black line running through each graph indicates average price while the y and x axes indicate price and time respectively as we can see prices have remained relatively flat since about mid 2016 when this recording began now moving on to the 500 to 800 watt category we find much of the same story depending on the efficiency average prices range anywhere from 60 bucks to 160 something worth noting is that a few of the lower tier models do dip below 50 bucks occasionally on this chart indicated by the various blue trends and great areas PC port picker here is taking into account the various vendors with which they have agreements so they can monitor prices over time onto the 800 1000 watt category prices here aren't relatively consistent to save a general upward trend starting early in 2018 for both the gold and platinum 80 plus tiers at 1000 1200 watts we see the same story regarding a gentle price bump but nowhere near the degrees some were reporting also take note there are two distinct price bumps for the Platinum tier here which would be what miners are especially interested in the first occurs at around June 2017 and then again at the start of 2018 will discuss the minor PSU preference here in a second lastly we round up the tally with the 1200 to 1500 watt category where across the board prices do rise in two distinct places yet again June 2017 and January 2018 now while I can't openly conclude today that these price jumps in the higher wattage tiers especially are the direct result of miners I can confirm a correlation at least between them and graphics cards because we know graphics cards being affected by miners directly take a look at the gtx 1060 for example we saw a huge price hike in June 2017 to sound familiar and again in January 2018 same goes for the gtx 1070 rx 570 rx 580 and even the gtx 1050 TI a card we largely anticipated would dodge these price hikes in fact the only two cards largely unaffected by the sudden surge in mining are vega 56 and 64 at least according to this database and that would make sense as these cards are virtually unobtainable still great mining cards by the way if you're into that sort of thing so this correlation is pretty strong I would say mad around the same time in both places we experienced a bump in both graphics card and high wattage power supply prices and it actually makes sense if you think about it because most miners are gonna have to go out and buy extra power supplies they want to buy 10 graphics cards most people don't have ten power supplies already laying around so that's the first thing and then you're also gonna want as high wattage as possible because it means that you'll have less maintenance in the long run and less energy loss in the form of heat in the long run if you intend on getting something like an 80 plus platinum or titanium power supply a lot of miners do like display several cards up to the same unit using a conventional methods however for example running for graphics cards or something insane off of a single mole-like splitter probably isn't the best idea molex connections aren't rated for that kind of power draw especially in the long run then the less this would explain why only the higher wattage tears are being affected on the whole for these we're looking at anywhere between a 50 and $100 price hike since June of 2017 which really isn't all that bad one see in the context of graphics card price hikes and that's where I want to call this one while a few of the lower wattage models in particular do appear to have gone up in price at least just a little bit over the past several months I wouldn't be willing to say that miners are solely responsible this just isn't as long-term a trend as the higher wattage models are experiencing PSU prices in general always fluctuate anyway depending on demand and availability and you'll often see something called price rebounding with these models as well so for example if a 600 watt 80 plus gold power supply drops to 60 bucks on sale for a few weeks it may rebound shortly thereafter to a much higher price than MSRP while inventory is being built up again so simple supply and demand right supplies really low but a man's still high the price will be raised until the equilibrium price point is met so power supplies do tend to fluctuate building the short term we're seeing a much stronger correlation with higher wattage models so I expect that that was in the market for mining or insane SLI or crossfire configs will really be the only ones truly affected by the psu price hikes we're experiencing right now on behalf of I would say primarily minors if you like it's better to be sure to give it a thumbs up I appreciate it thumbs down for the opposite or if you hate 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