Let me start off by saying this is the very first story I've put on here, I do not really blog on other platforms but I am a long time user and fan of social media in general so I am hoping this is a place where a few words can still be heard without the need to write a book, I only do that when I'm replying to someone else.
Today, someone posted in a Facebook forum for computer hardware that he was looking for a GTX 1070 and I thought to myself it was kind of strange he couldn't just go get one online. His complaint wasn't that they are sold out but it was related to the price so I went to see what I could get a 1070 for and was a bit shocked. From the last time I checked not a few weeks ago it would appear that price has increased about 200.00 USD from around 350 to 450-500 at the time of this writing.
I quickly realized this must be due to crypto currency as I had just recently picked up 4 GTX 1060's (just the 3GB versions so I wasn't taking from gamer stock) and they were doing very well for me. After a google search my thoughts were confirmed and in a move that took place nearly overnight Nvidia cards went the way of AMD. I also went back and looked up my 180.00 (deal) 1060's and they were just out of stock. What I consider gaming cards, the 6GB variants had been marked up a bit beyond 400.00 or at a minimum about 100.00 more than they were which is crazy considering the 1060 is 1 step up from entry level. The 1060's are becoming very hard to get now even at the new price and the 1070's are nearly as bad.
When I got my 1060's the payback time was about 52 days, a considerable price drop in the BTC earned from hashminer following these cards flying off the shelf has increased that time closer to 70 days. People just now getting into it will be hit by the newer prices and the ROI will likely match that of a 1080TI. The only upside, the TI is a great mining card and has not been impacted by these hikes. If I built a new rig today it would be full of 1080TI's, but I'm new to this so there could be a lot I am missing. Let's hope that Nvidia gets their mining cards to the general public soon.
TL;DR
Check out what is going on with Nvidia card prices here on the link below.
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/#gpu.chipset.geforce-gtx-1060-3gb