AMD Radeon RX 580 hits $900 on Amazon from scarcity

The cryptocurrency game is stepping up to a new level with Bitcoin hitting a new record $2900 point, but now there's Ethereum, a new distributed public blockchain network. It's similar to Bitcoin, but there are major technical differences between the two that make Ethereum very good for graphics card owners.

Ethereum isn't ASIC specific, so you don't need specifically made graphics cards to run it, meaning you can use any GPU you have right now. Without going into its own story, AMD Radeon graphics cards are far superior to anything NVIDIA has with Ethereum mining, with a Radeon RX 580 beating the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with one hand tied behind its back. Even the Radeon R9 295X2 and its dual-GPU prowess destroys everything, and is the current champion graphics card for Etherium - but maybe not for power consumption, though.

We're now at the height of Ethereum, which is currently selling for around $260 right now, riding an insane 2800% increase in the last 12 months. This has driven the price of graphics cards through the roof, with the MSI Radeon RX 580 Gaming X 8G listed on Amazon for an insane $899.99. Considering NVIDIA's much faster for gaming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti costs $700 or less, the price of the RX 580 is bonkers.

There are still listings for $259 on the MSI RX 580 Armor 8G OC, up to $479 for the ASUS ROG Strix RX 580 and even $749 for the GIGABYTE RX 580 Gaming 4GB. AMD Radeon RX 400 and RX 500 series stock is scarce as hell right now, but with the current Ethereum dominance on Radeon hardware, it's no wonder why.