NVIDIA and AMD said to raise GPU+VRAM bundle pricing as GDDR6 and GDDR7 costs climb
Taiwanese reporting points to higher shipment pricing for GPU cores bundled with GDDR memory, even as official suggested prices for finished graphics cards stay the same.
Memory & GPU bundles are now more expensive for AIBs
BenchLife says NVIDIA notified AIC partners on January 16 that all bundled GDDR6 and GDDR7 options are getting more expensive. The report adds that GPU core pricing was not changed, and that NVIDIA’s new memory bundle pricing still comes in lower than AMD’s terms for AIB partners. BenchLife also says both AMD and NVIDIA are keeping SEP/MSRP unchanged, which may squeeze entry models first.
On January 16th, NVIDIA officially notified its AIC partners that all bundled GDDR6 and GDDR7 memory packages are now increasing in price. We have been informed of the price increase through familiar AIC partners, but we won’t specify the exact price here. What we can say is that NVIDIA’s new prices are still lower than those announced by AMD to its AIB partners.
— Benchlife (translation)
According to some coverage, NVIDIA is taking on some pressure from memory costs to maintain stable partner pricing, at least temporarily. That kind of buffer tends to work best during short spikes, while longer contract cycles can delay when new pricing shows up in the channel. The fact that bundled GDDR pricing is now moving suggests the pass-through phase is starting.
MSI, Gigabyte and ASUS reportedly start price hikes
Commercial Times focuses on what happens next in the board-partner chain. The report says Taiwan add-in board vendors started raising AMD card pricing to distributors about a week ago. The report also says MSI has already raised NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series pricing again, and expects ASUS and GIGABYTE to follow with updated pricing by the end of the month.
MSI has also taken the lead with another round of price hikes for NVIDIA RTX 50 series cards. ASUS and Gigabyte are expected to release their latest price adjustment plans by the end of the month at the latest, marking the beginning of a price increase cycle for AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards.
— Commercial Times (translation)
The report adds that the upstream increase varies by VRAM configuration, landing around 10% to 15% for the supply price of GPUs tied to GDDR6/GDDR7 costs, while MSRP stays unchanged.
The same report points to Europe and China spot-market pricing already moving, citing 10% to 18% increases for AMD RX 9000 series cards and 15% to 20% increases for 16GB-plus RTX 50 models. From what I can see, EU retail pricing has not shifted evenly yet, but the next wave often takes a few weeks to take effect.
Meanwhile, RX 9000 series pricing has also been above AMD’s suggested levels in many listings since early in the series, which leaves less room for another clean step up without pushing cards further away from MSRP. AMD was recently said to prioritize the RX 9070 XT model over non-XT, which suggest some decisions have already been made.
Source: Benchlife , Commercial Times
