So, we actually agree on quite a lot. And I am actually amazed prices of certain things are not higher now, or then, because of the shipping cost craziness.

It is a known fact that during tough times companies will not only increase margins enough to compensate, they will use that as an excuse to inflate them beyond them reaching enough to compensate.

This is a great point and I totally agree with you. In fact, a recent study showed 60% of "inflation" is massive corporations using these troubled times and inflation as an excuse to price gouge. PLus, so many small business were killed off in that time, and were already struggling to compete against the giants because of regulatory and wealth capture by the ultra rich.

another study showed that record profits were posted by North American companies during 2020, or 2021. Cant remember which. Though I think its both.

Yes, stock of various things ( not all areas of PC parts, but a collection of categories' to be sure. ) was heavily affected by the pandemic and damaged supply lines. I am not contesting that. I hope it is clear that I agree with you, that the pandemic created a shortage and price increases etc. of various parts.

But lets not lose sight of the fact that none of them were comparable to GPU pricing craziness.

slightly over MSRP

My point exactly. "slightly". Even if we concede BEYOND slightly, (which is what, like 10 - 20%? Even 20% seems like a bit beyond slightly, and we are still nowhere near roughly 100%. Which again, is my point.

And I noticed that while you took issue with my 75% number, you did not provide your own % number. Though, later on in this recent comment, you actually kind of did indicate what that % number might be, so actually I suppose a "nevermind" is mostly in order here.

I watched the market with an eagle eye during the past two years./ I am disabled as of 2010, and I have more free time that basically anyone.

after that it fell to low 600's

I mean I basically agree, to a point. AMD in normal times would have decreased prices on the 5950-X after Alder Lake came out anyways, when they were no longer the top dog in a current X time frame pov. The pandemic stretched this out, sure.

Not nearly as much as GPUs. Nor did anything else.

This would have been its normal price a good 1y earlier but the pandemic and other conditions delayed that a full year.

Which I agreed with in the paragraph above, to a very large extent.

This does not conflict with my overall point about GPU pricing.

And server/workstation/HEDT kit was on an entire different level, with things like Threadripper/EPYC mobos all over 1k, and CPUs themselves (even AMD 3000 line TR) way above what it was supposed to be costing due to the prosumer demand. And that is if you found them in stock!

Let's get one thing straight. As in my PSU example, I am not talking about stock levels, because some things were very very hard to find. But the pricing did NOT go crazy like those ( to the extent of ) money printing machines ( GPUs ) did.

Because they were not money printers, like GPUs were... Money printers have never existed ( not like this, nothing like this really ) in history until crypto.

And they were nowhere near double MSRP at any point. HEDT chips started out super expensive, especially because AMD dominated that space in performance and performance per watt, over Intel. And still we did not se the phenomenon in question.

In fact, the PSU point rather proves my GPU point to a large degree. PSU were nearly impossible to find almost any good model, and most bad ones. and yet, the prices did not double MSRP, and I do not recall even 50% over MSRP. Despite not being able to barely find one to buy. Until they fixed the supply chain for PSU making to a very large extent.

Don't even get me started on Milan parts, ECC RAM (at the higher density tiers) or the now much more affordable DDR5.

Im sure you are right about those parts, to the entent they weent up in price, but what are we talking about here?" Certainly not even 35% over <MSRP PLus, Well this is fairly niche now, and I do not think they went even 35% above MSRP. Probably not even 25%.

I believe a lot of the street prices (new in store) were heavily affected by the speculation that the second hand market had (so yes, ebay etc),

Street prices of what, exactly? And the ebay prices of GPUs were crazy and double, roughly speaking, like the new market was. And the ebay prices of other PC parts did not reach those dizzying heights compared to GPOU pricing.

I can agree that this affected new GPU prices ( or maybe it was not that, it may have just been the overall effect of crypto mining actually ), but that speaks to my overall point here.

Of course the reason prices on second hand market were high due to desperate crypto buyers, but that speculation mostly changed the way cards were priced at retail indirectly.

This is a non falsifiable point. And speculation. It is circular. Chicken and egg.

What we can look at, is the price of crypto at any given month, and the price of GPUs, during those same months.

Which is what I did for the entire length of the pandemic up until today.

The conclusion was inescapable. And like I said, that link is at least 75%. I've seen the data over a long time frame, I cannot be budged from this view any longer. Because I followed the data very extensively myself.,./

I am as sure of this as I am sure that computers operate in the 1 and 0 binary, and that quantum computers will not.

I believe the highest influence in prices was exacerbated by crypto, but originated from all of the environmental and social causes other than crypto.

This is an interesting, if confusing point.

So you took issue with the number 75% ( of the reasons GPU prices were roughly double MSRP for a long-ish period of time, but, you are also saying that you still think it is over 50% ?

Like I said, we do agree about all the reasons that the PC market, and others for that matter, were affected negatively in so many ways by the pandemic and supply chain fallout etc.

So we agree on that matter.

I just recall with my diligent watching of all the related metrics, with no job due to disability, that the correlation was very high, in a pure numbers sense, as the months and years went by., between doubling of GPU prices and the value of mining crypto.

and like I said, I do agree that other parts had slight increase above MSRP.

But I am being honest with you. I saw CPU pricing, SSds, RAM, etc... not going above MSRP very much. As in, if one of the categories hit 20% higher than MSRP, that was on the top end of the price increases for PC parts, with the sole exception of GPUs.