PC World - USA (2021-01)

8 PCWorld JANUARY 2021

NEWS HOW MUCH SCALPERS MAKE

CPUs have sold at a median price of $1,275.

Those impossible-to-get GeForce RTX

3080 cards with a list price of $699? Well,

7,222 of the 3080’s sold at a median price

of $1,315.

Driscoll wrote custom scripts to scrape

eBay results. As part of his research, he

focused only on sold items to determine the

median price, rather than inflated bids. To try

to troll scalpers, some have bid up prices of

the hardware (go.pcworld.com/bdup) with

no intent to buy. Because Driscoll’s research

excludes $60,000 bids for GPUs, and only

includes actual completed sales, it’s likely a far

better gauge of the scalping market on eBay

right now.

Driscoll hates scalpers just as much as

anyone. “I don’t personally mind the

person who flipped their console because

they had one,” Driscoll told PCWorld. “I

mind the scalping which is someone

buying out Best Buy’s entire stock or has a

bot just buying them right away to flip

dozens or hundreds online.”

RYZEN 7 5800X ISN’T A

GREAT BUY FOR SCALPERS

EITHER

Driscoll’s analysis indicates AMD’s Ryzen 7

5800X is starting to get to the point where

there may just be no money in it for “casual

scalpers.” The 8-core CPU has an MSRP of

$449, but the median price of sold chips is

$589. In the past week, that price has rapidly

dropped to $545, which is below the price

where Driscoll thinks casual scalpers decide

to bail.

Driscoll defines a “casual scalper” as

someone who perhaps bought the hardware

at full retail and has decided to sell it at a

profit. He assumes this type of scalper pays

taxes and shipping, so the watermark to quit

is far higher.

Sophisticated scalpers, however, use

bots and generally have made a business

out of trying to buy as much as possible on

Day 1 to sell quickly at a profit. The

sophisticated scalpers are likely still making

money, Driscoll said.

Based on where prices of the Ryzen 9

Here’s how many Ryzen 5000 chips have been

scalped on eBay according to data from data

engineer Michael Driscoll.

Number of Ryzen 5000-

CPUs sold on eBay

Since introduction on December 7, 2020

15%

378 UNITS

24%

624 UNITS

29%

742 UNITS

32%

834 UNITS

Ryzen 9 5950X

Ryzen 9 5900X

Ryzen 7 5800X

Ryzen 7 5600X