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Comment by jpatte | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly the French market (and more generally the European Market?) seems to have been spared from that trend, at least for now. The prices have remained steady during the last year and there is still stock available for a large choice of card flavors. See for example https://www.materiel.net/achat/gtx-1080/catNom-cartes+graphi...

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Perhaps electricity costs there are higher than in the U.S. so mining is less profitable?

Although I don’t have these issues in Ohio, either. You can find any NVidia card you want easily, and only AMD Vega is in short supply at the moment. Still doable though, if you’re willing to put in a bit of effort.

France famously derives >70% of it's energy from nuclear energy and has vastly lower prices than neighboring countries.

Electricity in France is 0.10 to 0.20 E/kWh. Depends on the terms and the time of day.

It's more than China and USA cities with hydro. It's less than some other places.

We may have lower production prices but it's either not significant or not passed down to the consumer.

Cards in French retailers are 20 to 40% more expensive than the American retailers.

They are constantly sold out as well. From my experience, there are only the overclocked/premium editions left and they charge a lot more than the RSP.

20% is because of VAT, so you have to discount that from comparisons.

Consumers have to pay it. No, this can't be discounted from comparisons.

The $500 card becomes > €600 because of adding the VAT and skipping the exchange rate.

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