Are you surprised by the sudden price increase of gaming PCs? Well, I don’t know about you but this price hike has definitely jeopardized my plan of getting a new gaming PC.
This begs the question: why are gaming PCs so expensive in the first place? In this article let’s find that out, shall we?
The main reason for the abrupt price increase in PC parts is because there is an ongoing global chip shortage which is more than likely to continue in the future as well. Besides that, the revamped interest in cryptocurrency mining and the disparity between the demand and the supply of the components have also contributed to this price increase.
Moreover, other small factors have also played their part and the combination of the current market forces means that the price of gaming PCs is at an all-time high. Seeing 2x or 3x times the asking price is not out of the ordinary but definitely something which needs to be remedied in the future.
The Reason Why Gaming PCs are So Expensive Right Now
The main reason gaming PCs are very expensive right now is because the balance of the market has been affected by the factors I have just talked about.
The global chip shortage, people buying gaming PCs in bulk for cryptocurrency mining, and the low supply of PC components mean that the demand for gaming PCs cannot be fulfilled in the market.
This has created an imbalance in the market and hence has driven up the price of gaming PCs significantly. As long as this imbalance of supply and demand exists in the market, the price of gaming PCs will not return to normalcy.
We have briefly gone through the reason so now let’s discuss them in a bit more detail to see how things have unfolded to the point where we are at now.
1. Global Chip Shortage
Microchips are used in almost all components of a PC. Some components even use more than 1 microchip hence the global chip shortage was quite devastating for the PC industry.
It all began in the early lockdown period when microchip manufacturing companies had to shut down for an undefined period of time. This meant that many orders were compiled and even more orders were added to the backlog.
We have to understand here that microchips are used in almost every electronic gadget and the bulk of this microchip manufacturing is being handled by TSMC. Having one manufacturer control most of the world’s supply meant that it could not keep up with the orders.
Even when the lockdown ended, the order toll was so huge that even to this day the microchip shortage issue has not been fully resolved. This issue has therefore greatly contributed to the price increase of PC components.
2. Cryptocurrency Mining
Mining cryptocurrency has been all the rave lately and for this reason, we have seen many investors buying PCs in bulk. The already low supply of gaming PCs due to chip shortage is further exacerbated when a single big player manages to get a hold on gaming PCs in bulk while not leaving PCs for the mainstream market.
For this reason, we saw Nvidia releasing Low-Hash-Rate (LHR) graphic cards. This was to curb this issue and provide a remedy for actual gamers that wanted to game on their PCs but it did not fully solve the problem.
The most affected PC component due to cryptocurrency mining is the graphics card. Since mining is mainly focused on this component many people are trying to get hold of graphics cards that provide the most benefit for mining.
This has caused a surge in the price of popular graphic cards like the Nvidia RTX 3000 series and AMD RX 6000 series. These graphic cards are being sold twice or thrice over the manufacturer’s MSRP.
3. Scalpers
The market due to global chip shortage and cryptocurrency mining was already in bad shape. What got it worse was when people started using bots to hog up the limited supply of components and sell them at an inflated price in the gray market.
This meant that if you wanted to build or buy a gaming PC you either had to sit on the waiting list or pay a premium for buying a gaming PC at a scalped price. Although scalping has died down, bits of it still remain today, especially in the custom-built PC industry.
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Conclusion
To conclude, all the factors have increased the price of each individual component of a gaming PC. This means that ultimately the complete gaming PC has gone up in price as well.
All hope is not lost though, and it is expected that by the end of 2022 the prices will stabilize but in the meanwhile, if you want a gaming PC then going with a prebuilt gaming PC is your best bet.
Prebuilt gaming PCs are also relatively expensive, but not as much as building a gaming PC by yourself from scratch.
