Graphics Card Depreciation Chart: GPU Half-Life = 18 months

[cpt_howdy]

[EDIT:  Should mention this work was done in £££ not $$$ (or BTC  )]

I've started doing a bit of small-time mining recently (~1.5GH/s) and I wanted to do some estimation of real profits, taking into account the capital cost of the mining hardware. After a bit of trawling, was amazed that I couldn't find a simple graph of GPU depreciation, so I made one. I'm not claiming this is comprehensive - I only looked at prices for mid-range ATI GPUs, because I thought the very high-end cards might follow a different price curve, and the very low-end cards are just hard to find prices for.
I basically looked for a few different cost points in the life cycle for the ATI 3000-6000 series - e.g. (i) the launch price, (ii) a subsequent price drop announcement, and then (iii) a used-price on eBay. The 'cost half-life' is about 550 days, or 18 months.

[SgtSpike]

Interesting...

I'd be curious to see the 5870 on there as well, since it's one of the more highly sought-after cards out there.

[Mousepotato]

Why is the 5850 on there twice?  I'm curious to see where the 5970 would place.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Nice.  Add in 5870 and 5970 I would imagine they will be outliers (I wish they weren't ). 

[hongus]

Why is the 5850 on there twice?  I'm curious to see where the 5970 would place.

The 5770 is there twice too. It's comparing the value of ~200 days after release and ~800 days after release. At least that's what I think.

[cpt_howdy]

Why is the 5850 on there twice?  I'm curious to see where the 5970 would place.

Yep - there are actually 2-3 points for each card. There's the launch price, which appears at [0,100%] for all cards, then I generally found a mid-point price from a forum or archived news story, then a 3rd data point generally came from eBay, as beyond a certain date, it's harder to get hold of new stock. (and even when you can they're at unrealistically high prices)

[cpt_howdy]

Im suprised the 5770 is doing so well

Well, you don't get much MHash out of a 5770, but I've found it's a pretty awesome combination of MH/J and MH/£ - I picked up 2 for £50 each, and I'm running them at 1V@860,300 for a power draw of 78W and rate of 197MH/s. That's 2.53 MH/J and 4 MH/£.

[Brunic]

14 posts and you come post something THIS useful? You get my "Newcomer of the month" award.  

It's an interesting topic to research. I suppose there could also be a correlation between the drop in value and the release of a new generation of cards. Do you have any dates?

*EDIT*
Ok, I didn't saw your excel chart. The data is limited but hey, it's still a good start.

[cpt_howdy]

14 posts and you come post something THIS useful? You get my "Newcomer of the month" award.  

It's an interesting topic to research. I suppose there could also be a correlation between the drop in value and the release of a new generation of cards. Do you have any dates?

*EDIT*
Ok, I didn't saw your excel chart. The data is limited but hey, it's still a good start.

Thanks! - I've been lurking for a few weeks, but glad to post something people might find useful. I'm really only mining to support the network, and because I believe bitcoin is a fundamentally good thing; UK electricity prices really only allow a very slim profit margin for miners (we're talking 10% here).
I know I didn't collect a whole lot of data, but I don't have the time to do something more all-encompassing (I'm supposed to be working right now actually  ). I think most people already know that products in the sort of bracket that GPUs inhabit (novel technology) follow an exponential curve with their depreciation - I just wanted to get a rough idea of the time constant.

[MysteryMiner]

HD3850 does not support GPU mining..

[PatrickHarnett]

HD3850 does not support GPU mining..

Maybe not, but it is a good reference point on the graph.  It supports double precision and up until recently would have been usable at Milkyway@home.  I haven't owned any HD38xx cards, but had a 2600 for a while (until it died). 

The 5970 points would be very interesting, and even the 4890x2's

OP: thanks for the graph

[cpt_howdy]

HD3850 does not support GPU mining..

True, but it does have a GPU, and it does depreciate, so it's valid to put it on the graph 
Name me a card released 1500 days ago that does support GPU mining...