Nvidia reportedly raises GeForce RTX kit prices for vendors
Nvidia reportedly raises its prices for GDDR6- and GDDR7-based GPU kits
Nvidia has reportedly raised the GPU kit prices for its GeForce RTX products, the GPU/memory packages that it ships to its partners to manufacture full graphics cards. According to Benchlife, this change impacts both GDDR7- and GDDR6-based GPU products. In other words, the entire RTX 50 series is affected.
In time, these higher prices are expected to make their way to customers as newly manufactured GPUs using these higher-cost kits hit the market. This follows a reported GPU kit price increase from Nvidia in May, which affected its RTX 5090 and RTX 5090 V2 GPUs.
Now we have received notifications that NVIDIA has issued a price increase notice for GPU KIT (GPU + VRAM) to its AIC partners, and we all know that this usually involves raising memory prices. In fact, NVIDIA had already issued a price increase notice for GPU KITs of GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5090 D V2 in May, and this time it is just a follow-up adjustment to other GeForce products in the product line.
The exact reason behind this GPU kit price increase is unknown. However, rising memory costs and rising silicon costs are likely factors. High demand for memory and TSMC silicon have allowed companies like TSMC, Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix to raise their prices and gouge their customers. All this is caused by the hype surrounding AI, which Nvidia has built up for years. There’s a lot of blame to go around here.
According to information we have received, in addition to the price increase of GDDR7 memory based on the Blackwell GPU architecture, other GeForce products using GDDR6 memory will also see price increases.
Rampant AI demand is causing higher pricing in other areas
If anything is to blame for the current consumer electronics pricing crisis, it’s the greedy elite that sit at the top of the world’s tech sector. They want new hyper-growth ideas, and they will trend-chase and hype up the newest fads whenever possible. The same people who hyped cryptocurrency and the metaverse are the same people who are hyping AI. The capabilities of AI are more often than not overstated. The demands for computational power are immense. Where’s the payoff? Unless you are a supplier for these datacenters, AI only has downsides.
The reckless buildout of AI datacenters to feed a seemingly inexhaustible demand for compute that doesn’t exist yet has caused a component crisis that has destroyed the consumer electronics market. Want a new laptop with a decent amount of memory or storage? Sorry, Sam Altman and his mates bought all the memory. Want a Raspberry Pi, Steam Deck or similar hobbyist electronics? Sorry, that memory isn’t for you anymore; it’s for the capitalists.
PCBs, heatsinks, capacitors, and other components are all seeing price hikes. The consumer techpocalypse isn’t restricted to DRAM and NAND flash. The price increases are everywhere. Years-old tech is now more expensive than it was at launch. Next-gen consoles seem increasingly unviable. More and more people who need new equipment are being forced into debt to acquire it. Greed and hype-chasing are killing consumer tech.
Yes, that was a bit of a tangent. If I could contain myself, this article would be shorter. However, I am sick of the constant price increases, and I lament what has been done to the computer. My only hope is that things will soon change.
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