The chaos of graphics card price hikes has now surpassed even the mining boom years. According to recent price tracking by German hardware outlet PCGH, no NVIDIA RTX 5090 listing under €5,200 can be found in the German retail market. The lowest price is a Gigabyte RTX 5090 Gaming OC listed by a third-party seller at €5,249, which converts to about NT$192774! When this card launched in Germany in early 2025, its suggested retail price was only €2,099; the current lowest price is already more than 2.5 times the original price and is still approaching 3 times.
The official suggested price is still listed on the website, but it’s basically impossible to buy.
NVIDIA’s official product page still lists a suggested price of €2,099, but that price only applies to the Founders Edition, which is basically impossible to buy. Click through to the purchase options, and the cheapest ASUS TUF RTX 5090 OC costs €5,365. The gap between the official suggested price and the actual market price has already exceeded €2,200, and this kind of “paper price” is becoming increasingly common in the 2026 graphics card market. The situation in the U.S. market is much the same: by August 2026, the median U.S. price of the RTX 5090 was $4,699.99, up another 9.3% from $4,299.99 in June; by early September, the lowest price had broken through the $5,000 mark. South Korea is even more extreme: in August, the Danawa price comparison site showed a high of 7.3 million Korean won, about $5,112, a single-month increase of 1.5 million won (about $1,052).
The Driving Force Behind Price Increases: GDDR7 Memory Costs Soar
The RTX 5090 is equipped with 32GB GDDR7, making it the consumer graphics card model with the largest VRAM capacity currently available. In 2026, memory cost became the dominant item in graphics card bill-of-materials costs, and VRAM’s share in some high-end graphics cards has exceeded 80%. Graphics card prices increasingly depend on memory cost, while the GPU chip itself has instead become a secondary factor. Take the RTX 5090 as an example: the memory cost of its 32GB GDDR7 is about $320, while the GPU chip (GB202) costs about $200 to $300, so memory has already become the most expensive single component of the graphics card. The unit price of 2GB GDDR7 modules rose from about $12 in mid-2025 to about $20 in Q2 2026. The RTX 5090’s 32GB consists of 16 2GB modules, and the memory chip cost alone is about $320.
The root cause of memory price increases is AI data centers’ demand for HBM (high-bandwidth memory). Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron control 90% to 95% of global DRAM capacity, and capacity is allocated first to higher-margin HBM and server DRAM, leaving GDDR7 with only the remaining capacity. HBM production requires vertically stacking multiple DRAM chips and interconnecting them with through-silicon vias. Each 1GB of HBM consumes about 4 times the wafer area of standard DRAM, causing AI memory demand to squeeze overall capacity far more than expected. IDC estimates that in 2026 AI data centers will absorb about 70% of global memory output; in 2022, that figure was only 20% to 30%. Consumer devices can only compete for the remaining 30% of capacity, so prices naturally rise. TrendForce data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, conventional DRAM prices rose 90% to 95% quarter over quarter, and GDDR7 module prices soared as well.
NVIDIA’s response: price hikes, production cuts, and skipping the Super refresh
NVIDIA notified AIC partners on May 13, 2026, that the GPU kit prices for the RTX 5090 and 5090D V2 would rise by about $300, citing rising GDDR7 memory costs. This is already NVIDIA’s third GPU kit price adjustment in 2026, with the previous two in January and March, bringing the cumulative increase to more than 15%. For AIC partners, this $300 increase must be passed on to consumers, or profits will be squeezed to unacceptable levels. Before this, NVIDIA had already cut RTX 50 series production capacity by 20% to 40% in the first half of 2026, with high-VRAM models hit hardest. The RTX 50 Super refresh, originally expected in 2026, has been postponed indefinitely because adding VRAM requires precisely the component that is currently in shortest supply.
The Chinese market has also been hit. A July 26, 2026 report from Wccftech shows that the retail price of the RTX 5090D 32GB in China has risen 22.5% from before, more than double the suggested retail price; the RTX 5080 has broken past $1,500; and the RTX 5070 Ti has risen 21.8%. Many Chinese retailers have begun stockpiling, expecting prices to keep rising, further worsening the supply crunch. According to reports, some small retailers have even pulled graphics cards from their shelves to wait for higher offers, behavior also seen during the 2021 mining boom, but on a far smaller scale than now. NVIDIA has notified Chinese manufacturers such as ASUS, MSI, Colorful, and Inno3D that 8GB models will rise by 600 RMB, 12GB models by 900 RMB, and 16GB models by 1,200 RMB.
Gamers’ choice: keep using an old card or switch to the RTX 5080
Faced with the sky-high price of the RTX 5090, many gamers are choosing to keep using older hardware and wait and see, while others are turning to the RTX 5080. The RTX 5080’s VRAM, bandwidth, and FP32 compute power are all half those of the RTX 5090. Its current lowest price in Germany is 1,449 euros (about NT$11,282), only one quarter of the RTX 5090’s lowest price. For most gamers, the RTX 5080 offers far better value than the 5090, unless they need 32GB of VRAM to run local AI models or 4K high-frame-rate gaming. Some gamers also choose to keep using the previous generation’s RTX 4090 or RX 7900 XTX; these cards still have enough performance for most games, and their second-hand market prices are relatively stable. In the US market, the RTX 5080’s lowest price is $1,579, 58% higher than its $999 launch MSRP.
AMD’s Radeon RX 9000 series uses GDDR6, so its price increases are relatively modest. The RX 9070 XT 16GB sells for $630 to $700 at mainstream U.S. retailers, significantly cheaper than comparable NVIDIA models. However, AMD has already raised RX 9000 series prices in early 2026, and GDDR6 costs are rising as well, just less than GDDR7. GDDR6 supply is relatively ample because it does not directly compete with HBM demand from AI data centers, but in the long term, if overall DRAM capacity continues to be squeezed by AI, GDDR6 prices could rise further.
When will the price drop?
The analyst consensus is that there will be no significant relief before 2027. New memory capacity from Micron and SK Hynix will not enter mass production until 2027 at the earliest, and most analysts expect consumers to feel prices easing only in 2028. DRAM contract prices in Q3 2026 are forecast to rise 13% to 18% quarter over quarter. Although this is slower than the more than 50% increase in Q1, “rising more slowly” does not mean “falling prices.” IDC forecasts that the PC market may contract 4.9% to 8.9% in 2026, with average selling prices rising 4% to 8%, showing that the memory crisis has already affected the overall PC industry.
For gamers, if their current graphics card can still run games, sticking with it is the most cost-effective choice. If they must buy, prioritize models with more plentiful supply, such as 8GB and 12GB, and avoid chasing scarce high-end cards. NVIDIA launched a 12GB version of the RTX 5070 Laptop GPU in April 2026, using 24Gb GDDR7 memory modules, offering more options to the laptop market. The second-hand market is also becoming active; previous-generation models such as the RTX 4070 and RX 7800 XT are relatively stable in price because they do not compete with AI infrastructure for the same memory, making them a pragmatic choice for budget-conscious gamers. The 2026 memory crisis differs from the 2021 cryptocurrency mining boom: demand from AI data centers is structural, with no pressure-release valve like a “crypto crash,” and the price floor has been permanently raised. The 2021 shortage eased quickly after Ethereum moved to proof of stake, but AI data center construction cycles are measured in years, so demand will not suddenly disappear.
Source: KOCPC Chinese