Just when you thought the cost of graphics cards couldn’t get any higher, rumours suggest one of the biggest hikes to date may be just around the corner. There is a surprising amount of variance in the apparent leak, though, suggesting the rise may not be as awful as expected. Nonetheless, the source indicates Nvidia GPUs will trend upwards in price either way.
A source on ChannelGate, a Chinese tech industry insider WeChat channel affiliated with the Board Channels forums, claims MSI just updated its price policy for GeForce RTX 50 series stock in a big way. Relative to October, the firm will apparently increase the cost of graphics cards by at least 100 yuan (around £11), reaching all the way up to 8,000 (around £899). No, that last figure isn’t a typo.
The GeForce RTX 5080 will apparently receive the biggest potential rises, somewhere between 1,300 and 8,000 yuan (£146 and £899 respectively). This echoes recent rumours concerning changes to graphics card prices from fellow manufacturer Colorful. It’s important to stress the enormity of that variance, however – there’s a huge difference between 1,300 and 8,000 yuan for what’s basically the same GPU, which brings this leak’s accuracy into question.
Meanwhile, the RTX 5070 Ti could increase in cost by 800-to-4,000 yuan. Lower-end cards like the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 get off relatively light according to the leak, with modest bumps of 200-to-1,000 yuan.
Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that these leaks concern the Chinese market above all, and won’t necessarily manifest in the UK or other global markets in the same manner. While I don’t welcome the prospect of further graphics card price increases, the cost of available stock has certainly numbed me to the consequence of more hikes. After all, it’s difficult to find stock of most high-end graphics cards in the UK now, let alone at anything close to original RRP.
For now, season the rumour above with an appropriate sprinkling of salt and keep holding out for the return of better days for GPU prices. In the meantime, you can check out our recommendations of the best graphics cards on the market, which we’ve recently updated in response to shifts in cost.
