More cards at the retailers, but still crazy prices.
For almost two years now, the situation has been extremely tense in the graphics card market, more so than in any other microcomputer sector. For many months it was strictly impossible to find any product at the retailers unless you subscribed to services informing you in real time about the delivery of some parts. You had to be perfectly prepared and jump at the chance because, within minutes, the rare cards found takers.
If we are to believe the shelves of the various stores of the LDLC group, for example, it seems that things are a bit better. The Cowcotland site has noticed that more references are marked "in stock" on TopAchat for example. This is also the case at LDLC itself and at the other subsidiary, Materiel.net. Better still, the return to stock of graphics cards seems to concern all ranges - from the least powerful models to the most powerful ones - and all manufacturers, AMD as well as NVIDIA.
However, we shouldn't be too happy just yet, because 1/ we don't know if this is just a temporary lull and, above all, 2/ it hasn't been accompanied by any price cuts. Only a few days ago, the 3DCenter website - which lists prices in Germany and Austria - pointed out a timid drop in prices during the first three weeks of January. Unfortunately, in France, nothing really comparable has been noticed yet, and to buy a very modest GeForce GTX 1660, you still have to pay almost 500 euros, while the most expensive models cost well over 2,000 euros. Let's hope that these returns to stock will soon be accompanied by more acceptable prices.
