The Hot Take: Again, Nvidia doing anti-competitive practices?
Nvidiaās graphics card prices are reportedly jumping again as memory costs rise and retailers start clearing shelves in panic.
With Samsung reportedly raising DRAM prices by about 20 per cent for the current quarter, Nvidia appears to have decided customers can pay. The result is another price rise for consumer graphics cards, the third such inflationary episode this year, according to the reports.
This one has reportedly emptied store shelves as distributors shift into full panic mode.
Unlike Nvidiaās May price rise, the latest bout appears to cover far more consumer graphics card models.
According to Taiwanās Economic Daily, Nvidia has increased prices on consumer-facing graphics cards by between 20 per cent and 30 per cent. That follows a price rise of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent in January 2026.
The May increase was aimed mainly at high-end cards such as the GeForce RTX 5090 series. The latest hike, therefore, looks like Nvidiaās third attempt to test how much pain gamers and system builders can absorb this year.
BenchLife claims Nvidiaās price notices to downstream supply chain partners now cover entire GPU bundles. That means the GPU itself and the GDDR memory are being lumped together on the same grim little invoice.
The notices, helped along by runaway rumours, have reportedly triggered a proper panic among retail channel distributors.
One major Chinese e-commerce platform went so far as to remove many mainstream Nvidia graphics cards from sale last week. Retailers that have already adjusted prices are showing a chunky difference.
The 16GB GDDR7 Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti is now selling for 10,700 yuan (ā¬1,389, $1,581), up from 9,299 yuan (ā¬1,207, $1,374) last week.
In November 2025, the same card was selling for 7,200 yuan (ā¬934, $1,064). The price rises are producing some daft results in the GDDR market as well.
Standard 2GB GDDR7 video memory now sells for $20, while a 3GB chip costs between $60 and $70. That means the 3GB GDDR7 part offers just 50 per cent more video memory but costs more than three times as much.
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The Hot Take: Is Nvidia pricing out AIB manufacturers to take the whole pie of selling their GPUs?
The ongoing component crisis has forced manufacturers to raise product prices around the world, which includes the best GPUs. MSI and PNY have just announced new prices for all RTX 50-series graphics cards for China, representing up to a 59% hike compared to MSRP. While Nvidia GPUs have been the most affected, offerings from Intel and AMD are also experiencing a similar predicament, according to Wccftech. MSI's price list actually shows the old prices (from a week ago) as well as the new ones, giving us an official percentage difference of 10-20%. Keep in mind the old prices still weren't at MSRP. The RTX 5080 Shadow 3X OC/Ventus sees the biggest change, going from 10,000 Yuan ($1,477) to 12,000 Yuan ($1,773), constituting a 20% hike. Other RTX 5080 variants received a pretty similar 18% hike, while the RTX 5070 Ti Shadow 3X OC now costs 19.5% more. Product NameOriginal PriceUpdated PriceOfficial MSRPvs. Originalvs. Base MSRPGeForce RTX 5090 D v2 24G VENTUS 3X OCĀ„22,999Ā„25,999Ā„16,499+13.04%+57.58%GeForce RTX 5080 16G GAMING TRIO OC WHITEĀ„10,999Ā„12,999Ā„8,299+18.18%+56.63%GeForce RTX 5080 16G GAMING TRIO OCĀ„10,999Ā„12,999Ā„8,299+18.18%+56.63%GeForce RTX 5080 16G SHADOW 3X OC/VENTUSĀ„9,999Ā„11,999Ā„8,299+20.00%+44.58%GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16G GAMING TRIO OCĀ„8,199Ā„9,699Ā„5,499+18.29%+76.38%GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16G SHADOW 3X OCĀ„7,699Ā„9,199Ā„5,499+19.48%+67.28%GeForce RTX 5070 12G GAMING TRIO OCĀ„5,899Ā„6,399Ā„4,499+8.48%+42.23%GeForce RTX 5070 12G VENTUS 3X OCĀ„5,499Ā„5,999Ā„4,499+9.09%+33.34%GeForce RTX 5070 12G SHADOW 3X OCĀ„5,499Ā„5,999Ā„4,499+9.09%+33.34%GeForce RTX 5070 12G SHADOW 2X OCĀ„5,299Ā„5,799Ā„4,499+9.44%+28.90%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16G GAMING TRIO OCĀ„4,599Ā„4,999Ā„3,199+8.70%+56.27%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16G SHADOW 2X OC PLUSĀ„4,299Ā„4,699Ā„3,199+9.30%+46.89%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8G SHADOW 2X OC PLUSĀ„3,099Ā„3,399Ā„2,799+9.68%+21.44%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8G GAMING TRIO OC WHITEĀ„3,399Ā„3,699Ā„2,799+8.83%+32.15%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8G GAMING TRIO OCĀ„3,399Ā„3,699Ā„2,799+8.83%+32.15%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8G INSPIRE 2X OCĀ„3,199Ā„3,499Ā„2,799+9.38%+25.01%GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8G VENTUS 3X OCĀ„3,299Ā„3,599Ā„2,799+9.09%+28.58%GeForce RTX 5060 8G GAMING TRIO OC WHITEĀ„2,799Ā„3,199Ā„2,199+14.29%+45.48%GeForce RTX 5060 8G GAMING TRIO OCĀ„2,799Ā„3,199Ā„2,199+14.29%+45.48%GeForce RTX 5060 8G GAMING OC V1Ā„2,699Ā„3,099Ā„2,199+14.82%+40.93%GeForce RTX 5060 8G SHADOW 2X OCĀ„2,599Ā„2,999Ā„2,199+15.39%+36.38%GeForce RTX 5050 8G GAMING OCĀ„2,599Ā„2,999Ā„1,899+15.39%+57.93%GeForce RTX 3050 VENTUS 2X E 6G OCĀ„1,649Ā„1,899Ā„1,399+15.16%+35.74%The highest-end Blackwell GPU available in China, the RTX 5090 D V2 is a cut-down version of the RTX 5090, featuring 24GB of VRAM instead of 32GB. MSI raised its price by 13%, which is less than every RTX 5060 and RTX 5050 variant ā those were around 14-15%. The RTX 5060 Ti (8GB and 16GB) and RTX 5070 both received price hikes under 10% compared to their old prices. If you put these numbers up against these GPUs' MSRPs then the picture becomes a lot grimmer. The RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Trio OC is now priced 76% above MSRP, while its cheaper Shadow 3X OC variant is still 67% more expensive than the suggested retail price. The prices for the RTX 5090 D V2 are 57.5% higher, the RTX 5080 and 5060 Ti up to 56% higher, the RTX 5060 up to 45% higher, and the RTX 5070 up to 42% higher. Moving onto Colorful's list, the company doesn't provide old prices to compare against, so we can only reference them against the MSRPs. The top-end offering, the RTX 5080 Vulcan W OC is now priced 59% above MSRP, while the 5070 Ti Vulcan W OC is 58.5% higher. The RTX 5070 and 5060 Ti 16GB models were largely under the 50% threshold, while price hikes for the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB and RTX 5060 variants were under 30% compared to MSRP. GPU ModelNew PriceOriginal PriceDifference% vs MSRPRTX 5080 Vulcan W OC 16GĀ„13,199Ā„8,299+Ā„4,900+59.0%RTX 5080 Vulcan OC 16GBĀ„12,299Ā„8,299+Ā„4,000+48.2%RTX 5080 Advanced OC 16GĀ„11,799Ā„8,299+Ā„3,500+42.2%RTX 5080 Ultra W OC 16GĀ„10,499Ā„8,299+Ā„2,200+26.5%RTX 5070 Ti Vulcan W OC 16GĀ„9,999Ā„6,299+Ā„3,700+58.7%RTX 5070 Ti Advanced OC 16GĀ„9,299Ā„6,299+Ā„3,000+47.6%RTX 5070 Ti Ultra W OC SFF 16GĀ„8,899Ā„6,299+Ā„2,600+41.3%RTX 5070 Ti Ultra OC SFF 16GĀ„8,799Ā„6,299+Ā„2,500+39.7%RTX 5070 Ti Deluxe SFF 16GĀ„8,699Ā„6,299+Ā„2,400+38.1%RTX 5070 Vulcan X OC 12GĀ„7,199Ā„4,599+Ā„2,600+56.6%RTX 5070 Ultra OC 12GĀ„6,799Ā„4,599+Ā„2,200+47.9%RTX 5070 Deluxe 12GĀ„6,399Ā„4,599+Ā„1,800+39.2%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra W OC 16GĀ„5,299Ā„3,599+Ā„1,700+47.3%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra Z OC 16GĀ„5,249Ā„3,599+Ā„1,650+46.0%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra OC 16GĀ„5,249Ā„3,599+Ā„1,650+46.0%RTX 5060 Ti Deluxe 16GĀ„5,199Ā„3,599+Ā„1,600+44.6%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra W DUO OC 16GĀ„5,099Ā„3,599+Ā„1,500+41.8%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra DUO OC 16GĀ„5,099Ā„3,599+Ā„1,500+41.8%RTX 5060 Ti Advanced OC 8GĀ„3,949Ā„3,199+Ā„750+23.5%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra W OC 8GĀ„3,949Ā„3,199+Ā„750+23.5%RTX 5060 Ti Ultra OC 8GĀ„3,849Ā„3,199+Ā„650+20.3%RTX 5060 Ti Deluxe 8GĀ„3,699Ā„3,199+Ā„500+15.7%RTX 5060 Ti DUO 8GĀ„3,549Ā„3,199+Ā„350+11.0%RTX 5060 Advanced OC 8GĀ„3,199Ā„2,499+Ā„700+27.9%RTX 5060 Ultra W OC 8GĀ„3,149Ā„2,499+Ā„650+26.0%RTX 5060 Ultra DUO OC 8GĀ„3,049Ā„2,499+Ā„550+22.0%RTX 5060 Deluxe 8GĀ„3,049Ā„2,499+Ā„550+22.0%RTX 5060 DUO 8GĀ„2,949Ā„2,499+Ā„450+17.9%RTX 5050 DUO 8GĀ„2,449Ā„2,099+Ā„350+16.8%Both of these lists came directly from the distributors but marketplaces online show that AMD and Intel GPUs are also more expensive now, as well. AMD's cards are selling for 14% to 29% higher prices, and Blue Team's cards are seeing $200 to almost $300 bumps, according to Wccftech. The RX 9060 XT 16GB is the worst offender among the two lineups, being hiked up by 28.8% compared to its MSRP. All of this is happening because VRAM prices have skyrocketed over the past year, with reports highlighting a $20 price increase per module. That means an 8GB card, with taxes included, should cost almost $100 more now, a 12GB card about $130 more, and a 16GB card roughly $180 more, and that's just accounting for VRAM price changes. With prices going up, there's an additional element of supply and demand that is pushing prices higher. There are no signs of the component crisis slowing down; in fact, we only see more fearmongering from major companies, persuading them to buy whatever they want now instead of waiting for some miracle market crash. With the way things are looking right now, prices don't seem to be coming down anytime soon, that much is clear.
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The Hot Take: We'll have to see, they just keep milking Ai at the cost of liquidating a whole other industry.
The GeForce RTX 50-series desktop graphics lineup has remained unchanged for just over a year now (since the introduction of the RTX 5050), and none of the conversations we've had at major trade shows suggests that a mid-cycle Super refresh will occur any time soon. But there are still signs that such an update could still happen at some point, and the latest sign comes from Seasonic, which has listed an RTX 5080 Super, an RTX 5070 Ti Super, and RTX 5070 Ti Super in its PSU wattage calculator. Go deeper with TH Premium: GPUs(Image credit: Noctua)Desktop RoadmapEnterprise RoadmapRubin in-depthThe Stout Owl: The ultimate Noctua G2 PCYou can click through the calculator and assemble a hypothetical system with these unannounced products inside. To be useful, this calculator also provides board power numbers for these as-yet-unreleased cards, and that gives us another bit of juicy info. Given that no official specifications for these GPUs exist, it's impossible to say whether these figures are accurate. But it does allow us to speculate a bit on how they might stack up to existing products. Unannounced RTX 50 Super-series TGPsGraphics CardTotal Graphics Power (W)% ChangeRTX 5070250--RTX 5070 Super275*10% RTX 5070 Ti300--RTX 5070 Ti Super350*17%RTX 5080380--RTX 5080 Super415*15% *As listed in Seasonic PSU calculator. Unconfirmed by Nvidia. Seasonic gives this purported RTX 5080 Super a board power of 415W in its calculator, or 15% higher than the existing RTX 5080's 360W envelope. That makes sense, because the RTX 5080's GB203 GPU is already fully enabled, so any Super version of that card would have to lean on higher power limits and more aggressive clock speeds to see any baseline performance benefit. That figure could also partially account for slightly higher power usage from 8 GB more GDDR7 memory on such a card. Past RTX 50 Super-series rumors have suggested that Nvidia will boost VRAM capacity on those products by moving to higher-density GDDR7 modules with 3GB of capacity each. GDDR7's power consumption as part of the overall board picture is relatively small, but more of it will still matter. If Seasonic's figures are accurate, we should also expect a similarly sized TGP increase out of the RTX 5070 Ti Super, whose 350W rating is 17% higher than that of the RTX 5070 Ti. The RTX 5070 Super, meanwhile, gets only a 10% TGP bump over the RTX 5070, from 250W to 275W. Both of these cards rely on GPUs that are slightly cut down from their full available resources, so it's possible that Nvidia could boost their performance through a balance of enabling more Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) in addition to boosting clocks through higher power envelopes. Beware of extrapolating performance improvements directly from these percentages, though. Our own testing has shown that any real-world performance benefits from these power limit increases are likely to be smaller than those figures would suggest. As our review of the MSI RTX 5090 Lightning Z showed, the largest performance boosts from higher power limits are likely to be concentrated in ray-traced and path-traced games, whose computational intensity is significantly higher than pure raster titles and is more likely to run the GPU into its power limits. In any event, we shouldn't expect to see these products any time soon. Nvidia has instead been focused on getting more out of existing Blackwell silicon with software improvements such as DLSS 4.5 upscaling and Multi-Frame Generation multipliers up to 6X. These technologies enable higher output frame rates and image quality with lower input resolution than past DLSS technologies, and the boost to both performance and image quality from those technologies in tandem has certainly made existing Blackwell products more appealing than they were at launch.But as monitor refresh rates continue to climb thanks to ongoing improvements to OLED and LCD panels, and next-generation HDMI 2.2 connectors looming over 2027, a hardware update of some kind that boosts baseline performance and potentially implements support for those standards seems practical at some point. Given these primarily consumer-focused improvements, an announcement at CES 2027 or Computex 2027 might make sense. As with any future product rumors, however, only time will truly tell.
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