Chinese graphics card company Vastarmor has recently launched two new custom Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards with the Radeon RX 6900 XT Super Alloy and Radeon RX 6900 XT Alloy. The release of these high-end cards comes after the company expanded its existing lineup with RX 6700 XT, RX 6500 XT, and RX 6400 offerings in recent weeks. These new RX 6900 XT cards appear to share an identical PCB and clock speeds at 1950 MHz base, 2135 MHz game, and 2365 MHz boost. The cards both feature a triple-fan and triple-slot design with the Super Alloy advertised as having a "breathing light effect" and water cooling retrofit support. The two cards are now available to purchase in China with the Super Alloy listed at 9999 RMB (1525 USD) and the Alloy listed at 7999 RMB (1220 USD).

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing a whole series of Vector² liquid cooling products for ROG Strix RTX graphics cards. ROG RTX 3070 Ti cards get their Vector² water block with passive backplate, and optional backplates in nickel finish to customize your water-cooled 3070 Ti ASUS GPU to your own desires.

The EK-Quantum Vector² Strix RTX 3070 Ti D-RGB is a complete liquid cooling solution including a new plexi Vector² water block, black-anodized aluminium backplate, and a mounting mechanism. The new look of the next-gen water blocks is dominated by minimalist straight lines. The 3rd-generation Vector cooling engine combines the jet plate with a 3D machined Plexi insert to improve flow distribution and thermal performance. This new cooling engine is still based on an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings, and still achieve top performance. Great care was taken to achieve a symmetrical flow domain by utilizing an internal bridge to secondary components. This was done to ensure the cooling of secondary components without sacrificing flow distribution over the GPU core.

NVIDIA has recently launched a global campaign to promote the availability of RTX 30 series graphics cards with multiple retailers and manufacturers informing customers of increased shipments. The launch of this campaign also coincides with the 5th consecutive month of price drops for NVIDIA GPU prices with the average price now at 119% of MSRP according to the latest report from 3D Center. The stores participating in the campaign appear to have most cards as now available or restocking with some cards receiving minor price cuts.

NVIDIAGeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards are now available! Get the ultimate play with immersive ray tracing, a huge AI performance boost with NVIDIA DLSS, game-winning responsiveness with NVIDIA Reflex, and AI-powered voice & video with NVIDIA Broadcast.

Pricing for AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards has been evolving positively for the last seven months, experiencing a downtrend that has brought street prices closer to the actual MSRP on the best graphics cards. According to 3D Center's price analysis of the Austrian and German markets, GPU pricing for both AMD and NVIDIA's latest GPUs have reached historical lows - although these lows are still at a premium over MSRP. Anyone looking to buy an AMD graphics card is now looking at an average markup of 12% over MSRP, while NVIDIA cards seem to be holding their inflated values slightly better, and still stand at 119% of MSRP.

The price action comes on the back of months of increasing supply at retailers, alongside reduced demand from Ethereum miners due to falling ETH prices ($2,912.54 at time of writing) and the expectation for Ethereum's passage to Proof of Stake (PoS) through The Merge, which is still slated for later this year. It's also likely that most customers who still haven't bought into the latest generation of GPUs from either AMD or NVIDIA are waiting for the release of Intel's competing Arc Alchemist discrete GPUs, not to mention AMD's mid-year RX 6*50 refresh and NVIDIA's next-generation graphics solutions. An exploding ETH price might bring GPU prices back up again; but until then, and at the rate prices are seemingly (at least locally) falling, it seems that consumers might finally be able to purchase GPUs at MSRP sometime after May.

ASUS has announced that it will be dropping the prices for almost the entirety of its NVIDIA RTX 30-series graphics card stack. The news comes on the back of finally descending channel prices for the latest GPUs, alongside the U.S. Trade Office decision last week of excluding integrated circuit boards from the added taxes in the China-US Trade War. As an ASUS representative told Tom's Hardware, users should expect an "up to 25%" price reduction to be applied throughout its RTX 30-series stack (from the RTX 3050 through the RTX 3090 Ti). Interestingly, there was no mention of AMD's graphics cards in the announcement.

After more than a year of inflated pricing, there may be a light in the tunnel - although it's becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether it's the RTX 3000-series family behind the veil or NVIDIA's next-gen solutions. No other AMD or NVIDIA board partner made a comparable announcement, but one would expect them to follow ASUS on the downward pricing trend or risk sitting in larger unsold inventories than they're comfortable with. Of course, this remains a problem for ASUS throughout the world, should the company not extend the price-cut to other regions other than the U.S.

According to TrendForce forecasts, average overall DRAM pricing in 2Q22 will drop by approximately 0~5%, due to marginally higher buyer and seller inventories coupled with the demand for products such as PCs, laptops, and smart phones being influenced in the short-term by the Russian-Ukrainian war and high inflation weakening consumer purchasing power. At present, the only remaining source of demand is on the server side, so overall DRAM stocks will remain oversupplied in 2Q22.

In terms of PC DRAM, PC OEMs are adopting a conservative stocking strategy for orders in 2Q22 due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, which may continue affecting orders during peak season in 2H22, and revising 2022 shipment targets downwards. Additionally, the overall supply of bits is still growing, so the PC DRAM price slump in 2Q22 will further expand to 3~8% and may continue to deteriorate.

NVIDIA at its Annual Investor Day announced that the company's coffers are in better shape than ever. And while the company has many baskets from which to pull proverbial profits, the company's gaming division remains its biggest source of income. On its presentation, NVIDIA clarified that gamers are spending on average $300 extra per desktop Ampere product compared to previous graphics product generations. That fact, the company says, has resulted in an average increase in product ASP (Average Selling Price) to the tune of 13% per year in the last five years.

Paired with the increase in graphics products' ASP (meaning NVIDIA brings in more money per sold graphics card) is an increase in the number of graphics cards shipped to customers - at a rate of 11% more graphics cards being sold annually. So NVIDIA is not only selling more expensive graphics cards; they're selling more of them as well. The company expects its financial results to keep steadily improving, even as more and more gamers join the fold. According to the company, the last five-year period saw an average of 50 million additional gamers entering the market per year - and there's no expectation of that figure slowing down.

Following the international sanctions levied at the Russian state as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, AMD, Intel and NVIDIA announced they'd be pulling all of their products from the country. That decision has led to quickly dwindling stocks of high-performance computing products, including graphics cards - and as we've learned form the recent graphics card supply issues, prices go up as availability decreases. This, in turn, led some workers of Russian company "Wildberries" to attempt to exfiltrate 20 RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards from the warehouse they were being stored in. Due to skyrocketing prices in Russia, each of these cards was reportedly evaluated at around 200K roubles (~$1931). That unit price made the entire haul worth an estimated $38,620.

While stealing the graphics cards went without a hitch, actually flipping them for profit proved out to be fatal for the criminals. As they attempted to sell their loot at a pawnshop, the shop owner contacted the authorities - no doubt finding it suspicious for so many new (and rare) tech bits to be on the groups' hands. It's reported that the criminals were ultimately arrested, and the graphics cards confiscated and returned to their rightful owners. As access to significant western technology becomes more and more limited in sanctioned Russia, it's likely we'll be seeing further reports such as this.

The Chinese division of XFX may be in hot water with Chinese customs authorities, after a shipment of 5,840 graphics cards was intercepted in the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. An initial inspection of the shipment revealed mislabeling of at least three of its graphic cards, with the card's original model and specifications apparently hidden by stickers that declared other, supposedly lower-value models. A subsequent inspection concluded that all graphics cards in the shipment had been mislabeled this way. According to MyDrivers, this purposeful mislabeling of imported goods is a relatively regular occurrence.

The Chinese customs services from Meilin and Huanggang reported the event, declaring that the total value of the mislabeled shipment was accounted at around ¥20 million ($3.15 million). The Chinese customs authorities didn't name XFX as the driving force of the attempted unlawful import, but the company's Chinese branch website has been down following the incident, and the company's web presence over at Alibaba-run, online retailer Tmall has been shuttered as well. At least some of the mislabeled cards were XFX Speedster Qick 319 Radeon RX 6700 XT GPUs.