VRAM Price Hike Storm Returns? NVIDIA Reportedly Raising Prices on Full GPU Kits

The consumer graphics card market, which had enjoyed six months of relative calm amid the 'AI price surge,' is now facing a new wave of price hikes. According to BenchLife, NVIDIA (NVDA-US) has issued a price increase notice to downstream graphics card manufacturers for GPU kits (GPU + VRAM chips), driven primarily by the continued rise in memory prices.

This price hike affects both the latest GDDR7 VRAM and the previous-generation GDDR6 VRAM. This means that not only most RTX 50 series cards based on the Blackwell architecture, but also the RTX 5050 and earlier models will be impacted—such as the RTX 3060 12GB, which recently re-entered the market at its 2022 original MSRP.

The report states this latest adjustment follows NVIDIA’s May 2024 price increase on flagship GPUs like the RTX 5090 (including the China-specific RTX 5090D V2). At that time, other graphics cards were unaffected.

Looking further back, in January 2024, both major GPU makers, NVIDIA and AMD, raised VRAM prices, with increases reportedly ranging from 10% to 15% depending on specifications.

Possibly influenced by this rumor, retail channel distributors have recently entered a state of panic and stockpiling. On one Chinese e-commerce platform, numerous mainstream graphics cards were massively delisted starting Thursday evening.

Some faster-responding retailers are already showing signs of the new price surge. For example, a well-known Chinese brand’s 16GB GDDR7-equipped RTX 5070 Ti was priced at 10,745 RMB on Friday afternoon, up from 9,299 RMB the previous day. The same model was priced around 8,000 RMB before the January price hike and could be purchased for approximately 7,200 RMB in November 2023.

Similar to the smartphone market, VRAM price increases are having a particularly significant impact on mid-to-low-end graphics card pricing. At the time of reporting, an 8GB RTX 5050 from one brand had already risen to 3,083 RMB, while its lowest price the previous week was just over 2,100 RMB—representing a price increase of over 40% in just one week.

In addition to forced price hikes on existing products, some graphics cards originally scheduled for updates this year are being delayed due to the VRAM price surge.

Last week, reports indicated that at least one NVIDIA partner had received RTX 50 SUPER series cards, but despite hardware readiness, NVIDIA has instructed manufacturers to pause new product launches.

The core issue remains the excessively high and unstable cost of VRAM chips. The RTX 50 SUPER series is expected to focus primarily on VRAM capacity upgrades, with all models adopting 3GB GDDR7 memory modules to increase capacity without changing the memory bus width configuration.

Currently, the price of a single 3GB GDDR7 chip has risen to between $60 and $70, while a standard 2GB GDDR7 chip remains around $20. This means that despite offering 50% more capacity, the 3GB VRAM could cost nearly three times as much.