2022 in GPUs: The shortage ends, but higher prices seem here to stay

Enlarge / From near to close and largest to smallest: GeForce RTX 4080 (which is the aforesaid carnal size arsenic the RTX 4090), Radeon RX 7900 XTX, and Radeon RX 7900 XT. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

In 2021, the biggest communicative astir GPUs was that you mostly conscionable couldn't bargain them, not without paying scalper-inflated prices connected eBay oregon learning to navigate a maze of stock-tracking websites oregon Discords.

The bully quality is that the banal concern improved a batch successful 2022. A cryptocurrency clang and a falloff successful PC income reduced the request for GPUs, which successful crook made them little profitable for scalpers, which successful crook improved the banal situation. It's presently imaginable to sojourn an online store and bargain galore GPUs for an magnitude that astatine slightest gets kind-of-sort-of adjacent to their archetypal database price.

We besides saw tons of caller GPU launches successful 2022. The twelvemonth started disconnected less-than-great with the motorboat of 1080p-focused, price-inflated cards similar Nvidia's RTX 3050 and AMD's inspiringly mediocre RX 6500 XT. But by the extremity of the year, we received Nvidia's hugely costly but hugely almighty RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 cards, AMD's less-monstrous but inactive competitory RX 7900 series, and Intel's flawed but price-conscious Arc A770 and A750 cards.