Russia’s graphics-card prices fall by about a third over the year as miners exit

From January to June, the average price of graphics cards in Russia fell by 36% year on year, amid a drop in demand for high-performance devices from miners. This was reported by Kommersant.

Retailers also noted the emergence of inexpensive Chinese brands on the market as one reason for the price declines.

Meanwhile, unit sales of graphics cards in the first half of the year rose by 50%, to 543,500 units. Until July 2022, about 60,000 devices were sold per month in Russia; now — up to 100,000.

Experts attribute this to interest from companies involved in artificial intelligence technologies.

In monetary terms, sales declined by 1.65% to 17.8 billion rubles.

As reported in the first quarter of 2023, the cost of equipment for mining cryptocurrencies rose by 15–20%, and in some cases — up to 30%. Back then, experts linked the dynamics to the rise in Bitcoin’s price.

According to data from the АЦТЭК, in 2022 the volume of energy consumption by cryptocurrency miners in Russia fell by 49% and amounted to less than 5 billion kWh.