Japanese retailer warns of further GPU price hikes

Buy “sooner rather than later” if you plan on upgrading, Japanese PC retailer warns

Applied, a Japanese PC retailer, has warned its users about incoming GPU price hikes, telling PC builders to upgrade “sooner rather than later”. While the retailer did not detail the size of the upcoming price increases or the GPU models affected, the message is clear. If you want to upgrade, now is the time to buy.

Applied’s message signals that GPU prices will remain unstable over the next few weeks or months. This means that hardware prices are expected to continue rising, adding further instability to the PC industry. While it is unclear what will happen to GPU prices in other regions, it’s clear this isn’t a good sign.

In recent months, prices for both AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce GPUs have increased. Nvidia’s RTX 5090 now costs more than double its original MSRP, with many retailers listing it at over £4,000. Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti 16GB has also risen in price significantly, making it more expensive than Nvidia’s higher-end RTX 5070 (which has 12GB of VRAM).

(Applied Group on X)

GPUs are becoming much more expensive to produce. The price of memory, PCBs, and other vital components are rising due to the AI datacenter boom. From the GPU silicon fabbed at TSMC to power circuitry on their PCBs, everything costs more than it did last year. This has created a bad situation for the PC market, as rampant AI server demand has ravaged established supply chains.

So do we believe Applied’s claims? At this point, there is no reason not to. GPU prices are already rising, and the only thing that could decrease costs right now is a collapse of AI datacenter demand. Since that isn’t happening, at least not yet, we can expect the GPU market to continue to face these pressures.

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