Why it matters: More good news for those looking to upgrade their graphics card: prices of Nvidia's and AMD's latest GPUs in Germany and Austria have dropped to their lowest prices in 15 months, hitting 25% above MSRP. The news arrives almost exactly one year after the RTX 3000 series was selling for 218% over the manufacturer suggested retail price.

Data for the German/Austrian market comes from the usual source of 3D Center, which has been collating the average selling prices of the RTX 3000 and Radeon RX 6000 series since the start of January 2021.

We've witnessed the average GPU selling price at retailers in the European counties fall this year, hitting a low of 35% (AMD) and 41% (Nvidia) over MSRP earlier this month. But the latest report marks the first time since 3D Center started publishing its findings that cards from both companies are at their lowest points, close to the sort of prices we saw at the end of 2020. And while these figures are only for Germany and Austria, they're often a reflection of current or upcoming global trends.

Also see: GPU Availability and Pricing Update: March 2022

Availability is also good. All of Nvidia's cards have five-star ratings apart from the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 (10GB), which have four. AMD fares slightly worse in this area: only the Radeon RX 6600 and 6800 XT managed four stars instead of five, while the RTX 6800 has three stars.

Graphics card prices are finally moving in the right direction after what has felt like an eternity of being obscenely high. Our own research shows Newegg and eBay prices continue to fall, dropping to their lowest in a year. The---admittedly not very good---Radeon RX 6500 XT is 35% under MSRP in Germany, and some of Nvidia's and AMD's AIB partners are running promotions on their GPUs. Additionally, the US has excluded some Chinese imports from tariffs, potentially dropping motherboard and GPU prices.

Cards being 25% over MSRP isn't something we'd usually celebrate, but these aren't normal times. The chip crisis and other Covid-related issues, scalpers, and miners have come together in a perfect storm to drive GPU prices through the roof, but if things continue the way they are, we could see a return to MSRP in a couple of months. And maybe Nvidia will stop boasting about people spending $300 more when upgrading to an RTX card.

h/t: VideoCardz