Although the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, two of the best graphics cards, were launched a week ago, Nvidia's partners have already started hiking their prices. Asus and MSI were among the first to increase prices in their U.S. online stores, although the GPUs are out of stock.
The price hike is likely due to the limited Blackwell supply, Trump tariffs, scalpers, or a combination of these. Depending on the variant, MSI was selling its custom GeForce RTX 5090 at launch for between $2,000 and $2,400. The Ventus 3X, the budget model in MSI's product stack, had the lowest price tag at $2,000. The pricing has increased by an additional $400, an 18% increase on the flagship Blackwell GPU.
The MSI RTX 5080 16GB Ventus 3X will set you back by $1,140, initially costing $ 1,000 when it was launched if the stock was available. The price increase on the MSI RTX 50-series GPUs can also be seen on Newegg, with no stocks available.
The price increase is also seen on custom Asus RTX 50-series graphics cards. The Asus Astral RTX 5090 has increased from $2,799 to $3,079, with zero availability. Similarly, the RTX 5080, made by Asus, has experienced a $200 price increase, just like MSI variants.
Many would argue that the price hikes are due to high-volume sales, as the RTX 50-series inventories were out of stock within twenty minutes at retailers like Newegg. However, Trump's tariffs had a bigger role in price increases. Last month, tariffs were announced on TSMC between 25% to 100%. Naturally, this will reflect on the final pricing of graphics cards and tariffs on other components such as VRAMs. Irrespective of the price tag, the graphics cards are selling off quickly, and scalpers added to the nuisance by selling the Blackwell graphics cards at ridiculous prices on eBay.
Many PC gamers blame other factors, such as cryptocurrency, AI, and even Nvidia, for pushing EVGA out of the GPU business. The early adopters were the only lucky buyers who could dodge this price hike. As for others, they'll have to wait until there is more stock and, hopefully, the prices stabilize. Those with a previous-generation GeForce RTX 40-series GPU may not see the urge to upgrade since the generation-over-generation uplift isn't extraordinary.
