Tuesday, February 18th 2025
Accusations Directed at ASUS over Anticipated PRIME RTX 5070 Ti Series Price Manipulation
GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards are due to hit international markets this Thursday (February 20), only in custom design form. NVIDIA will not be rolling out a Founders Edition model for this mid-to-high GPU product tier. Yesterday, an NDA-busting leak emerged online; hinting at a mixed bag of synthetic benchmark scores. When compared to new-gen and past-gen siblings, the incoming GB203 GPU-based family's "price-to-performance ratio" was greeted with plenty of online community skepticism. Considering that only a minority of AIB companies are reportedly engaged in the supply of cheaper offerings, the early outlook for overall GeForce RTX 5070 Ti launch pricing is generating further dissatisfaction. Team Green's first wave of "Blackwell" gaming GPUs launched late last month, straight into chaotic market conditions.
At CES 2025, NVIDIA set a baseline MSRP of $749. Fresh reports suggest that hardware review outlets will be delivering comprehensive verdicts tomorrow. VideoCardz believes that the lifted review embargo will be "exclusively for MSRP cards," based on information gleaned from their network of press contacts. The GPU specialist publication has kept tabs on fluctuating GeForce RTX 50-series prices for a while—several recent reports have levelled criticism at prominent Team Green board partners; namely ASUS and MSI. Plenty of venom was directed at the former, due to last month's launch of the: "GeForce RTX 5080 PRIME non-OC model at MSRP, and it was covered in the first reviews...Except, it was increased by 26% the following week. This way, ASUS has cheated the system and got both the early coverage and was still able to sell cards at a higher price." VideoCardz predicts a similar pattern for this week's release of custom GeForce RTX 5070 Ti designs, in particular ASUS PRIME and TUF Gaming SKUs. Their latest report directed additional ire toward the source of all things Blackwell: "unless NVIDIA has no problem with this, this is not how MSRP cards should be announced. It is very misleading for customers and puts reviewers in a very bad light. Their conclusions might be completely different if the card is said to cost much more."
Sources:
Notebookcheck, VideoCardz
At CES 2025, NVIDIA set a baseline MSRP of $749. Fresh reports suggest that hardware review outlets will be delivering comprehensive verdicts tomorrow. VideoCardz believes that the lifted review embargo will be "exclusively for MSRP cards," based on information gleaned from their network of press contacts. The GPU specialist publication has kept tabs on fluctuating GeForce RTX 50-series prices for a while—several recent reports have levelled criticism at prominent Team Green board partners; namely ASUS and MSI. Plenty of venom was directed at the former, due to last month's launch of the: "GeForce RTX 5080 PRIME non-OC model at MSRP, and it was covered in the first reviews...Except, it was increased by 26% the following week. This way, ASUS has cheated the system and got both the early coverage and was still able to sell cards at a higher price." VideoCardz predicts a similar pattern for this week's release of custom GeForce RTX 5070 Ti designs, in particular ASUS PRIME and TUF Gaming SKUs. Their latest report directed additional ire toward the source of all things Blackwell: "unless NVIDIA has no problem with this, this is not how MSRP cards should be announced. It is very misleading for customers and puts reviewers in a very bad light. Their conclusions might be completely different if the card is said to cost much more."
53 Comments on Accusations Directed at ASUS over Anticipated PRIME RTX 5070 Ti Series Price Manipulation
GTX 970 launched at 330 dollars.
RTX 5070 Ti is a much more cut-down die. Why should we be okay with it being almost double that, I don't know. No idea.
There's no hope AMD or Intel make any difference so best not to buy anything.
As soon as you start accepting that a video card isn't just made for videogames, the dirty tricks played by Master Swindler Jensen are easier to swallow.I want a "Fake MSRP" badge
microcenter
Edit: Hell if you can, stop buying any GPUs until the market is starved of money and forced to reinvent itself.
Cards will be sold at MSRP but they will be as many as needed to keep Nvidia from getting sued for false advertisement, assuming that someone can sue a company for advertising one price and seeing in the market a different one. Unfortunately there is NO pressure from the press. And it's not going to be, because tech sites and Youtubers attacking Nvidia, will see their samples getting delayed or not coming at all. And unfortunately consumers wouldn't either support those tech channels or Youtubers. They might write a comment or two "Bad Nvidia" and in the next minute they will order an Nvidia card, while also subscribing to those tech sites/channels that had their reviews at day one, sites/channels that decided to play with Nvidia's rules. That's how things are today.GTX 970 was a great card, even with that 3.5+0.5 VRAM joke.
And I do agree with your post. With $330 you where getting the second best card 10 years ago. Now with $330 you get the second worst card. In 10 years with $330 the only option will be some SOC with a mid range iGPU (mid range compared to other iGPUs, not compared to discrete GPUs).
Why work & ship more GPU's when you can just sell 10 instead of 100, when you can just ask higher prices. :D
Not sure we should blame Best Buy or ASUS for this markup specifically from this one retailer. For sure we can partially blame NVIDIA for not supplying enough GPUs to meet the demand.
I think the situation will get worse for the opportunity to buy a nvidia 5000 series high end card. Although I would not consider a 70 card high end. Price wise it definitely is high end.
People will buy. I also bought overpriced radeon 6600XT when it was fresh on the market with far too much asking price and additional scalper shop tax.
If there are supply issues, then they simply need to do whatever they can to make more. If they don't have supply because they're concentrating on a different market, well that's a whole different issue that still lays the blame on them.
You know fab lead times are 6-12 months. When placing your initial order you have to guess what the market will be like in a year. If you are too optimistic you could easily put yourself out of business. It has happened to AMD multiple times.
In the EU anyway.
For AMD's case, they most likely under-ordered and did not expect the 9800X3D to be more popular than the 7800X3D. Hopefully we won't see the same supply shit with the RX 9070 series.
Really crazy pricing. +$1080 over MSRP of a base model. (Taken from Best Buy US)
EDIT: Even more price gouging, although not as much as ASUS' above: