Radeon RX580 GPU Price Down 67% Since February

AMD’s popular Radeon RX580 graphics processing unit (GPU), which has been used in widespread fashion by crypto miners, is now being sold for $179.99.

This is according to a report from gaming magazine PC Gamer on December 19.

This means that the GPU, which touched a peak average price around $550 in February 2018, has seen a 67 percent price dip throughout the year, which has been called the “Crypto Winter” by some crypto personalities.

The year-long bear market has had a substantial impact on the crypto mining industry, with significant drops in revenue urging a lot of miners to quit the industry and sell off their equipment. Some miners have even began selling mining devices by the kilogram in a bid to recoup losses as their rigs reach “shutdown prices.”

Consequently, the “Crypto Winter” has also impacted GPU producers such as Nvidia and AMD. Diminished interest in crypto mining resulted in a sharp drop-off in GPU sales to miners with AMD reporting that their crypto-related sales in Q3 2018 were “negligible.”

In the spring of 2018, AMD CEO Lisa Su said, “[Blockchain technology is] a very important technology […] The idea you can do all these peer-to-peer transactions, a decentralized network, it’s a good technology, but frankly l think it’s a bit of a distraction in the short term.”

With regards the impact of blockchain applications on the firm’s business Su said:

“We believe blockchain or mining was about approximately 10 percent of our revenue during the [first] quarter. And the truth is there are a lot different factors in these estimates. We feel we have a very good idea of what people are using our products for. It’s a nice growth factor, but it’s certainly not the dominant growth factor in our story.”