Monday, March 17th 2025

ASUS Implements Another GeForce RTX 5090 Price Hike, PRIME RX 9070 XT "MSRP" Adjusted to $719
"Second wave" ASUS price hikes were documented online over the past weekend; affecting air-cooled premium ROG Astral and mid-tier TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 models. Looking at the company's North American webshop, visitors noticed a freshly adjusted price for the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB OC Edition—going from a previous level of $3079.99 up to $3359.99. Curiously, the asking price of a liquid-cooled sibling was not adjusted—remaining at a "first wave" point of $3409.99. The "cheapest" model—TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 (non-OC)—experienced a $460 (representing 20%) price hike, bringing total cost of ownership up to $2759.99. As a reminder, NVIDIA's baseline MSRP guideline was $1999—as announced at CES 2025—but ROG Astral and TUF Gaming designs demand a premium or two for fancier feature sets. VideoCardz has fervently explored worrying market trends in the recent past; several of NVIDIA's big board partner players have jacked up asking prices for GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards. Availability of stock is still a major sore point for potential buyers, who were not able to secure launch day wares. Despite a driving up of costs, the ASUS US webstore has absolutely zero stock of GeForce RTX 5090 SKUs—at the time of writing.
In addition, VideoCardz and other PC hardware media outlets noted price hikes affecting the manufacturer's stable of recently launched AMD Radeon RX 9070 Series TUF Gaming and PRIME models. In the absence of AMD-built (MBA) reference card designs, board partners were tasked with the providing of baseline "MSRP" conformant custom cards. The ASUS PRIME Radeon RX 9070 XT OC and RX 9070 OC Editions were readied as $599 and $549 options (respectively). Weekend sleuthing work put the spotlight on newly adjusted price points of $719.99 and $659.99 (respectively)—representing further cases of plain 20% elevations over baseline. AMD's debut batch of RDNA 4 cards was met with unprecedented demand earlier on in March, but secondary/tertiary stock shipments face unclear market conditions—Team Red GPU enthusiasts have (similarly) voiced their collective displeasure about elevated prices at retail. Mid-way through last week, the PC hardware community heard about ASUS leadership considering a new pricing strategy. The company is reportedly accelerating its manufacturing exodus from China.
Sources:
Resetera, VideoCardz, Wccftech
In addition, VideoCardz and other PC hardware media outlets noted price hikes affecting the manufacturer's stable of recently launched AMD Radeon RX 9070 Series TUF Gaming and PRIME models. In the absence of AMD-built (MBA) reference card designs, board partners were tasked with the providing of baseline "MSRP" conformant custom cards. The ASUS PRIME Radeon RX 9070 XT OC and RX 9070 OC Editions were readied as $599 and $549 options (respectively). Weekend sleuthing work put the spotlight on newly adjusted price points of $719.99 and $659.99 (respectively)—representing further cases of plain 20% elevations over baseline. AMD's debut batch of RDNA 4 cards was met with unprecedented demand earlier on in March, but secondary/tertiary stock shipments face unclear market conditions—Team Red GPU enthusiasts have (similarly) voiced their collective displeasure about elevated prices at retail. Mid-way through last week, the PC hardware community heard about ASUS leadership considering a new pricing strategy. The company is reportedly accelerating its manufacturing exodus from China.
26 Comments on ASUS Implements Another GeForce RTX 5090 Price Hike, PRIME RX 9070 XT "MSRP" Adjusted to $719
moralestock improves.I'm not going to get into their 20-70% increase of MSRP for various 5090 models. Those are just overpriced low-mtbf risk-machines that only people who make money off using them should consider buying.
Scalping is scalping.
What especially pisses me off is that ASUS has the gall to openly admit 'we're making our customers pay for our shortsightedness' as their one meek reasoning for this. Throw out the entire board of directors if they can't stomach the idea of a company taking out a loan or losing capital for a little while.
Just shows greed has no boundaries. What ever its Ngreedia, Asus or a stupid scalper.
I read it several times. Only a few hundred pieces are for the very small price. Than the AMD sponsored prices are over and everything will cost more.
Personally I came to the conclusion the cheap batch is gone - bad luck. I'll wait for the next amd radeon generation. I'm not in the mood to pay more for outdated old technology. The later I buy something the worse the usable time is.
Why this was impacted in actual launch pricing, IDK. It's been said there has been trouble in AMD keeping current with them in the past and companies hesitant to absorb that difference in MSRP until they receive it. Right wrt first two paragraphs, but I think the rebates are being worked out as prices stabilze long-term, as I mentioned above. They may not give them again right now, but likely will again somewhat shortly.
How long that takes to impact market pricing (in the short and/or long-term), I don't know.
As for waiting, I can both understand it and not. If you're not going to buy a conceivably more-expensive card next-gen, you're really just ahead of the curve on the low-end w/o paying a lot more, I think.
And prices *will* eventually go down. We still don't know for *certain* when 3nm cards will launch; it could be a year and a half or even more away (or less than year, who knows). But N48 cheaper long before.
As I've said countless times, it's pretty clear this is the intention of 9070 xt. It's essentially a 10060/6060 (or whatever).
That doesn't make it bad, even if that sounds 'low-end', as most cards don't even fit that all-around description, certainly not for this intended market. It has always been in the ~$1000 MSRP market.
For many people, they need to stop thinking of 1080p/1440p/4k native (as we judged raster performance).
It is perfectly okay to use 1080p RT and up-scale it to 1440p. That's the whole reason DLSS exists and why FSR4 in it's current iteration (of good 1440p up-scaling) is what it is even if 1080p->4k isn't perfect.
That's not it's market. It's not even really 5070 or 5080's market either (in raster for the former or RT for the later), although does use it (and FG) to *attempt* to sell both as better products than they actually are.
They're just playing the Capitalism 101 game...one that will NEVER end, at least until consumers boycott this nonsense...
It's the board's job to keep the company profitable, and if they don't do their job correctly, they can be sued
so, to do as you ask of 'take out a loan' or 'lose capital for a little while', can only be done if they think they will make $ back somehow, enough to offset the initial loss
Here, A$U$ (and pretty much everyone else) is obviously seeing people willingly to pay through the nose to get cards, so they want a bigger cut of the pie. You can't really blame them for doing that, it all goes to your first point of, if people stop paying so much over the original price, then A$U$ wouldn't go this route and let their cards rot in a warehouse while the competition blows them out of the water with lower priced cards
If all AIBs start doing this, then you know something is up, and there are laws for collusion, we just don't know the full details on if Nvidia / AMD raised prices or what's going on behind the scenes
just wait, the GPU you are using now is good enough right?… so keep using it. The upside is most games are designed for the power of the ps5pro… so EVERY Nvidia card is more powerful than the ps5pro or ps5 right? 80 percent user base that Nvidia has must be more powerful than an Xbox series X, or ps5 right?… lol… just wait, cheap prices come to those that wait, or pass the “ marshmallow” test (I dislike that test, because I am impulsive, and assumes that you (know) will get more if you wait…
The second-hand market scalpers, are not only getting all the money to themselves, they are an excuse for AIB's GPU-vendors, to use it as a bottom line, a milestone in price making. In it's turn, for the sellers to raise the price again, making an excuse that the GPU/videocard makers did it themselves first.
And this doesn't have an end. They leapfrog each other, to raise the bar higher and higher each time, with not even a tiny bit of calming down their apetite, and showing the respect towards the buyers, which they all are mercilessly gouging.
This will last, and the scalpers will buy the cards, and resell them at ebay. And the only way to stop this, is to start control the supply channels, and each store, which deals with the cards. Raising the price doesn't increase the supply. Even if this is the last card in this month/year supply, they should sell it for an MSRP, regardless of AIB or GPU maker. The later, won't magically get the bigger allocation at TSMC, if the sellers sell the cards for 150%-200%.
The GPU makers, should take the responsibility themselves, and make the entire manufacturing and supply chain accountable for every f*ck up and reputation/brand's image damage. Each chip that is being sold, was supplied to AIB's, and each chip should be sold as a graphic card, one per a single buyer. There are the serial numbers of a chips/cards. And sell it through the AMD/nVidia own sites, or at least redirect to the official distributor/seller storefronts, with secured link, with an expiration time. I'm all for privacy, but at this point, people can use their ID's/Passports to buy the stuff. Or at least not more, than a number of cards per household, or not more than/equal 50% of all household residents. So there won't be the situations, when the entire household buy out the cards for themselves. Only half of them to be eligible.
There are millions of ways, to make the sale fair and secure. But they all have chosen to not opt in, for obvious reasons.
Best regards!