2022 in GPUs: The shortage ends, but higher prices seem here to stay
Enlarge / From left to right and largest to smallest: GeForce RTX 4080 (which is the same physical size as the RTX 4090), Radeon RX 7900 XTX, and Radeon RX 7900 XT. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
In 2021, the biggest story about GPUs was that you mostly just couldn't buy them, not without paying scalper-inflated prices on eBay or learning to navigate a maze of stock-tracking websites or Discords.
The good news is that the stock situation improved a lot in 2022. A cryptocurrency crash and a falloff in PC sales reduced the demand for GPUs, which in turn made them less profitable for scalpers, which in turn improved the stock situation. It's currently possible to visit an online store and buy many GPUs for an amount that at least gets kind-of-sort-of close to their original list price.
We also saw lots of new GPU launches in 2022. The year started off less-than-great with the launch of 1080p-focused, price-inflated cards like Nvidia's RTX 3050 and AMD's inspiringly mediocre RX 6500 XT. But by the end of the year, we received Nvidia's hugely expensive but hugely powerful RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 cards, AMD's less-monstrous but still competitive RX 7900 series, and Intel's flawed but price-conscious Arc A770 and A750 cards.