So, apparently some Trump era tariffs are being put in effect on June 15th for some reason. It affects electronics from china, with the GPU market possibly being hardest hit. And I'm just gonna say it, F trump, who came up with this idea, but also F biden, who has decided to implement it. I mean sure Biden kinda delayed implementing it due to inflation, but now that prices are stabilized, he's doing it. And this is something that's gonna be popular with no one. As we know, the GPU market has been a complete and utter dumpster fire since Nvidia released turing back in 2018. The market has been screwed, and we JUST FINALLY got back to some semblance of "normal" and now they're pulling this crap.
For reference, back when I got into gaming, you could get GPUs as low as $50, they wouldnt be good, they'd be entry level, but you could get one. $100+ used to get you something decent. $200 got you something good, and the crazy enthusiasts used to go up to like $500. And even $500 was insane back then.
Even as recently as 2017 with Pascal, you could get something okay for entry level for $100. Something like a GT 1050 or RX 560 or something. Of course, most mainstream mid range buyers went for stuff like the venerated 1060 or RX 480/580 for around $200-250. And that was normal. Spend under $300, the enthusiasts spend more. But yeah, best bang for your buck was around $200-300ish.
Then Nvidia got greedy. 2000 series offered little price/performance and suddenly "60" cards cost "70" level pricing (around $350-400). The 1660 series was offered for normal 60 buyers, but let's face it, it was a mild generational uplift after 2 years and it was clear nvidia was yanking our chains.
3000 series, same crap. Wasnt even a good buy under $300. 3060 was $330, 3060 ti was $400, and good luck getting either at that price because we got hit with covid and a crypto boom simultaneously. Suddenly you were spending $400 for a fricking 1050 ti, which normally cost around $140-180. Everyone was buying 1650s for like $400 just to hold them over and that was worse than my 1060.
And then, after COVID, prices slowly crept back down, with the dam really breaking in late 2022 as AMD wasn't selling cards well so offered practical fire sale prices on their 6000 series. We were talking down to $190-210 for a 6600, $230-270 for a 6650 XT, and $350 for a 6700 XT. And that was decent. Like what that stuff shouldve cost in the first place. The 6600 was basically like a modern 570, with the 6650 XT being more like the 580 type model. Ya know? Decent.
But...that's where the market has been since. The 6600 is still, today, the cheapest card worth buying at $190. The GPU market below that point has been decimated, with $150 6500 XTs and 1650s and $130 6400s, and the 1030 still going for almost $100 for some reason. It's like that part of the market hasnt moved since 2018. The 7600 is now the same price, with around the same performance, as a 6650 XT (around $250), and Nvidia is still charging almost $300 for a 3060 and exactly $300 for a 4060.
And that's the bottom end of the market. Now "mid range buyers" are expected to shell out $500 for a fricking 4070 or 7800 XT. The top end of the market instead of going up to around $600-800 now goes up to $1600 for the 4090, and people cant even get it for that price. It's actually like $2000+ from what I understand.
And now the government wants to put a tariff, basically a 25% tax, on all of these things? The point of this tax isnt to raise money. it's to punish buyers from buying a foreign product. That's why trump pushed this crap in the first place. Because his idea of "make america great again" is to tax foreign made goods to encourage domestic production. Because "jobs". Screw that guy. And screw Biden for going along with that. I mean, if GPU prices go up 25%, this is what the product stack will now look like:
6600/3050 6 GB- $240
6650 XT/3050- $290
7600- $310
3060- $350
4060- $375
6700 XT: $390
4060 Ti- $500
And yeah that's just some of the more reasonable models out there.
I aint even talking about the high end of the market. This is mainstream normie 1080/60 FPS stuff. We're crowding out the low end of the market already. Even with inflation, a $110 1050 should cost like $150 today.
I mean if you asked me this is what the market SHOULD look like today:
6400- $80
6500 XT- $100
1650- $100
3050 6 GB- $125
3050- $150
6600- $150
6650 XT- $175
7600- $200
3060- $200
4060- $230
6700 XT - $250
4060 ti- $300
That's what the market SHOULD look like if it looked anything like it used to back before 2018. It doesn't. We still suffered from inflation. prices are better than they were, but keep in mind when "inflation" raged we were back to like 2012-2013 era price/performance here for a while. We finally got back and track and now we gotta push a 25% tax because "jobs".
I mean, if we were doing this to fund a UBI, I might look the other way. a 25% consumption tax isnt my ideal UBI funding mechanism, but at least it would put money back in people's pockets. This is just taking money out of them, and screwing over people who have been dealing with inflated prices since BEFORE COVID. Not good, not good at all. And honestly, i cant just bash Biden for this, it was Trump's idea, but Biden never should've re-implemented this. Terrible idea.
Well, at the very least I won't be buying a GPU in the next year probably since I jumped on a 6650 XT the second we hit "the new normal" in 2022, but still, this really sucks for people who do. Especially with the 5000 series from nvidia and the 8000 series from AMD around the corner.
EDIT: It looks like they will be delaying the implementation to give companies more time to shift away from china. Still, it's only one year.
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