According to Chinese Board Channels and relayed by TechPowerUp, Nvidia may be preparing a price increase on the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D V2 GPUs. Chinese Board Channels, "a reliable source for graphics card supply chain information," says that Nvidia will increase the price on these GPUs by roughly $300 for their add-in card (AIC) partners.
This price increase is the result of a drastic increase in price for GDDR7 memory. A price increase that is the result of a memory shortage. A memory shortage caused as a result of an increase in demand for AI data centers. These data centers are supplied with memory hogging servers by companies such as Nvidia. Funny how that works out.
These increased prices on the RTX 5090 cards will be felt first by Nvidia's board partners.
Interestingly, NVIDIA provides its AIC partners with a "GPU kit," which includes the GPU die itself, a GB202 in this case, and GDDR7 memory. This arrangement prevents AIC partners from having to source GDDR memory on their own, which would cause significant delays. Additionally, if memory makers sourced these modules themselves, they would have to make deals under unfavorable conditions, whereas NVIDIA can often secure a volume discount. However, due to the global shortage and insufficient memory chips, NVIDIA is forced to accept a higher GDDR7 price and pass it on to its AIC partners.
Currently, Nvidia's suggested MSRP for the RTX 5090 is just $1,999. The only way in which anybody is able to find a card at this MSRP is if and when Nvidia restocks their Founders Edition cards.
