Recently, the unveiling of NVIDIA’s latest line of GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs sent ripples and thrills throughout the ranks of the tech fraternity. A lineup that featured the RTX 5070 at $549, the RTX 5070 Ti at $749, the RTX 5080 at $999, all the way to the flagship, RTX 5090 at $1,999-these new models will be offered toward the end of January and February.
RTX 50-Series
One of the major innovations with the RTX 50-series is the introduction of DLSS 4, an advanced AI technique that gives many games a nice boost in performance and visuals.
But, as with several factors in this article, a spot of reality: it’s unlikely anyone will find many of these GPUs at MSRP. As one report states, NVIDIA’s narrow margins on the RTX-50 series are squeezing their AIB partners quite hard. It’s been characterized as selling at MSRP is “like charity,” which suggests many custom models from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and others will likely be higher than NVIDIA’s paper launch prices.
Expensive GDDR7 VRAM is the main component used in new GPUs, and it contributes a lot to this potential price increase. Board partners can’t offer custom RTX-50 series graphics cards at MSRP due to the high cost of the advanced memory technology, so price increases are foreseen.
While NVIDIA’s own RTX 5090 Founders Edition launched at $1,999, for example, custom variants with nicer coolers and other perks will push that cost significantly higher. In the case of the ASUS GeForce RTX 5090 Astral, it will allegedly set consumers back by some $2,800, which sits considerably above the base model price.
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This is not entirely a new trend, but given that custom models were usually above MSRP because of things like better cooling, factory overclocking, and brand premiums, it feels like these tight profit margins coupled with the high cost of components such as GDDR7 VRAM in the RTX-50 series are pushing it further than before, making it much more difficult for consumers to find GPUs at recommended MSRP.
In summary, while NVIDIA’s RTX-50-series GPUs offer impressive advancements in performance and technology, consumers should be prepared for potential price increases on custom models. The combination of tight profit margins for AIB partners and the high cost of components like GDDR7 VRAM makes it unlikely that many custom RTX-50 series graphics cards will be available at their initial MSRP.
