MSRP a myth? NVIDIA says no, GeForce RTX 50 Series prices to stabilize soon

Take your pick of any recent GPU launch, and you'll probably find that the majority of cards sold were premium partner cards with enhanced cooling and overclocked settings. This has been a thing in the GPU space for years, where PC gamers spend a little extra for that premium build or stylish model with fancy cooling and LED lighting. The only problem is that premium GeForce RTX 5080 and Radeon RX 9070 XT cards are currently being sold at prices that are 40% higher than the MSRP set by NVIDIA and AMD.

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The ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5070 Ti widely available for $749 USD would be nice to see.

This massive discrepancy is a recent phenomenon and has been a hot topic among the enthusiast PC gaming community for several reasons. One, if you're unable to buy, say, buy a GeForce RTX 5070 or RTX 5070 Ti at the MSRP set by NVIDIA ($549 and $749 respectively), then the next model up might carry a 20-30% higher price which diminishes a chunk of the card's value. In the worst examples it also means that you could end up paying more for a GeForce RTX 5070 than the MSRP of the more powerful GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

During a recent media pre-brief with NVIDIA, covering the company's latest GeForce RTX and AI announcements as GDC kicks off, we asked about MSRP pricing as a current issue and hot topic.

How is NVIDIA working with its partners to ensure that more affordable GeForce RTX 50 Series models will become available to consumers? "We are working closely with not just our AIB partners but also our retail partners to make sure that the supply is available at MSRP," NVIDIA's Justin Walker responds. "In the end, the best way to do that is to get more supply onto a shelf. As soon as the supply catches up to demand, we expect prices to stabilize."

This was a follow-up question regarding limited availability for all GeForce RTX 50 Series cards. NVIDIA told us that stock has been selling out as soon as it hits shelves, even though the company has shipped twice as many GPUs during the same five-week period of the GeForce RTX 40 Series launch. "Shipments have already ramped up," Justin Walker said when talking about availability, adding that it's working overtime with its many partners to ensure supply catches up to demand. Although NVIDIA didn't provide an exact timeframe, they expect this to happen soon.

With that, more MSRP models will become available, and GeForce RTX 50 Series pricing will "stabilize." Hopefully, prices for premium models will become a little more realistic than the 30-40% markup we're seeing.