The memory crisis keeps getting worse: Nvidia graphics card prices now rumoured to increase by as much as 30%

Despite the memory crisis continuing to rage, Nvidia graphics card prices have been relatively stable over the last 20 or so weeks, until Nvidia appeared to have raised the price of GPU kits for AIB partners last week. Now, it seems like that price increase is up to 30%.

This is according to the Taiwanese outlet, Economic Daily News, which claims Nvidia is raising the prices of its GPU bundles (the GPU and memory) by between 20–30%. This is set to affect both GDDR6 and GDDR7. The report claims that graphics card distributors in China are in a "state of panic, reluctant to sell".

Industry analyst Harukaze5719 places the price of the Chinese market exclusive RTX 5090 D at $3,843 and the RTX 5080 at $1,845, the latter just short of the MSRP of the RTX 5090 at launch. The RTX 5090 was already suggested to have received a price increase back in May, so, if proven true, this would be the third Nvidia price increase this year.

Naturally, Nvidia raising the prices of the components doesn't mean partners have to follow suit, but it's very unlikely they will eat that extra cost. If a graphics card partner can match that price increase and still sell the cards, it will.

A major problem with the graphics card market right now is the cost of VRAM to go inside the card. With the memory crisis ongoing, prices have only gone up, and chips are becoming harder to purchase. That's likely some of the rationale behind AMD launching a 4 GB RX 9050 this week. And why the likes of memory manufacturers SK hynix and Samsung have just reported record profits.

Recent NVIDIA GeForce GPU price increase summary pic.twitter.com/TiYMM8ZGwKJuly 30, 2026

There were rumours late last year that Nvidia might stop bundling VRAM with GPUs, but that only really solves the problem for Nvidia. Partners would still have to source their own memory, which could be a problem for more budget-oriented cards and less well-known partners.

Graphics cards are already in a pretty ugly place. We round up the best graphics cards deals every week, and the best RTX 5090 deal currently sits at $4,200 over at Walmart, with the best price for a RTX 5080 being $1,250 at Amazon.

With the memory crisis not expected to end until at least 2029, it seems like it will only get harder and more expensive to build that gaming PC you've been pining after.