ASUS Implements Another GeForce RTX 5090 Price Hike, PRIME RX 9070 XT "MSRP" Adjusted to $719

[T0@st]

"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.



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[wNotyarD]

ASUS - In search of incredible ripoffs.

 

[Event Horizon]

The price hikes will continue until morale stock improves.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

The ASUS PRIME Radeon RX 9070 XT OC and RX 9070 OC Editions were readied as $599 and $549 options (respectively).

Did they actually sell a single card at MSRP? I was watching pretty close on launch day and didn't see any listed at those prices. They didn't actually show any stock at those prices as far as I'm aware. They did show cards in stock at various points at the higher prices though.

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.

 

[holyprof]

It's the right thing to do. Although I dislike ASUS, it's better the manufacturer get the "scalper" price hike than some bot farm buying GPUs to sell on ebay.

 

[Prima.Vera]

It's the right thing to do. Although I dislike ASUS, it's better the manufacturer get the "scalper" price hike than some bot farm buying GPUs to sell on ebay.

Yeah, one scalper is better than the other...
Scalping is scalping.

 

[jh_berg]

The price hikes will continue until morale stock improves.

The price hikes will continue as long as there are consumers buying.

 

[T0@st]

Did they actually sell a single card at MSRP? I was watching pretty close on launch day and didn't see any listed at those prices. They didn't actually show any stock at those prices as far as I'm aware. They did show cards in stock at various points at the higher prices though.

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.

VideoCardz claims that they saw ASUS USA following "MSRP" guide prices last week, but it must've been very brief.

 

[Prime2515102]

Raise the MSRP so you don't look so bad for the fact that you can't control your supply chain. When you sell GPU's for gaming, they should end up in the hands of people looking to use them for gaming. That's all there is to it. They take advantage of our loss to make even more money. Yeah, I get capitalism, but how much do you really need? You're not fueling the economy, you're lining your pockets.

 

[iameatingjam]

Please my beloved Asus card which I love so much, don't die on me anytime soon. I was just kidding when I said all those things about your customer service and declining product quality.

 

[yfn_ratchet]

Price gouging of the most egregious degree. Do not buy, simple as. There are no margins to make in unmoved stock.

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.

 

[JohH]

Well now anyone buying one better not be a scalper. No one is paying a premium over that!

 

[Tomgang]

Welp better buy a dusin before they hike the price again then. I need to scalp them on eBay.....

Just shows greed has no boundaries. What ever its Ngreedia, Asus or a stupid scalper.

 

[_roman_]

Did they actually sell a single card at MSRP?

According to the bots there were for a small amount of seconds cards available for those prices.

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.

 

[alwayssts]

VideoCardz claims that they saw ASUS USA following "MSRP" guide prices last week, but it must've been very brief.

As they mentioned in a different article, it was likely until rebate allocation ran out. IMHO the rebate may be $100, which allows for both increased margin at launch, and if eventual adjustment to ~450/500 MSRP.

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.

According to the bots there were for a small amount of seconds cards available for those prices.

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.

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.

 

[bonehead123]

Despite a driving up of costs, the ASUS US webstore has absolutely zero stock of GeForce RTX 5090 SKUs

Or so they say.....does anyone REALLY know how many cards TRUELY exist in any given location or mfgr warehouse or factory ?

They're just playing the Capitalism 101 game...one that will NEVER end, at least until consumers boycott this nonsense...

 

[Chaitanya]

Shitsus smoking their own turd, nothing new to see here.

 

[Athena]

Price gouging of the most egregious degree. Do not buy, simple as. There are no margins to make in unmoved stock.

I do agree, if people would stop buying way overpriced items, that is the strongest way for companies to know that they can't do that anymore

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.

Eh?
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

 

[Bwaze]

 

[Kohl Baas]

Sad thing is, the only constant they keeping up is margin. Which means if nVidia comes back with a bang in the next gen, say a 1,5k$ MSRP 6090 and these cards stop at under/around 2k will not mean you got a good del, but that you got a "premium" card with cheap ass components to keep the prices as low as possible...

 

[hv43082]

Well...as long as their overpriced cards keep being bought up by consumers then they will keep raising it.

 

[LittleBro]

AIBs are the new scalpers.

 

[Leiesoldat]

Linus Sebastian had some good information from an undisclosed integrator source on the WAN Show two weeks back regarding the current prices. The MSRP from AMD is not what the cards should have been set at because the current MSRP means all the cards will be sold at a loss. The 720 USD point should be the true MSRP because that's including the 20% tariffs (20% of 600 is 120). AMD knew ahead of time what the tariff rate would be, unlike Nvidia, so they could have adjusted appropriately but wanted a pricing win against Nvidia, so the current pricing fiasco is pure incompetence on AMD's part. The AIB's have no choice but to price with the included 20% or they would be taking massive losses on all components that make up their boards (AIB's hold much greater inventory than the GPU makers so the risk is many times higher).

 

[redeye]

Linus Sebastian had some good information from an undisclosed integrator source on the WAN Show two weeks back regarding the current prices. The MSRP from AMD is not what the cards should have been set at because the current MSRP means all the cards will be sold at a loss. The 720 USD point should be the true MSRP because that's including the 20% tariffs (20% of 600 is 120). AMD knew ahead of time what the tariff rate would be, unlike Nvidia, so they could have adjusted appropriately but wanted a pricing win against Nvidia, so the current pricing fiasco is pure incompetence on AMD's part. The AIB's have no choice but to price with the included 20% or they would be taking massive losses on all components that make up their boards (AIB's hold much greater inventory than the GPU makers so the risk is many times higher).

ya, but a tariff is on the “value for customs”, not MSRP.

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…

 

[TechKilledMe]

The cost per frame on 5090s is just ridiculous. Why anyone thinks 180 fps (spitting random numbers here) vs say 110-120 on a 4080 on modern games with max settings, is not worth 3x the price. You get maybe 40-50% in most scenarios for 300% price increase. That math just doesn’t work. Using my 4080 super I have literally no issues with any game, plenty of performance. Pushing 600 watts into a card (almost double a 4080) for a 50% improvement isn’t a good value either. 5090s are also all probably gonna explode from a power stage failure after a year or two. Even if you’re a super rich streamer a 5090 just doesn’t make any sense at 3400-3500$.