• Zotac has hiked pricing with RTX 5090 fashions on its US on-line retailer
• Two of these, together with the top-end board, now value $500 extra
• This follows related strikes by Asus and MSI with the Blackwell flagship on their very own on-line shops

Zotac is the most recent third-party graphics card maker which at present appears to be inflating the worth of Nvidia’s Blackwell flagship GPU.

VideoCardz seen a Reddit publish (see beneath) which flagged up that over on the Zotac retailer within the US, its RTX 5090 fashions simply turned much more costly – and these GPUs are definitely nowhere close to the official MSRP.

Zotac 5090 Amp Excessive is now $3000 and the 5090 Strong OC is now $2700 from r/nvidia

As you may see, the Zotac RTX 5090 Amp Excessive now suggestions the scales at a wallet-worrying $3,000, and even the lesser RTX 5090 Strong OC mannequin is a weighty, and equally regarding, $2,700 drain in your financial institution stability.

This represents a recent enhance of $500 on the worth tag within the case of each graphics playing cards, in line with the data divulged on Reddit right here.

Zotac is likely one of the board producers that sells their merchandise immediately from their very own on-line retailer, with Asus and MSI additionally being on this membership. Sadly, all three of those corporations have hiked pricing, notably with the RTX 5090 (which Asus not too long ago inflated by a hefty quantity, so its top-end GPU is much more costly than Zotac’s Amp Excessive).

Evaluation: Climbing pains

You may argue that value is all the time going to be associated to provide and demand, and if it isn’t crystal clear sufficient now, the provision of Blackwell GPUs has to this point been fairly horrible, and demand has approach, approach outstripped it. Even the demand for the costly RTX 5090, with the flagship being hit with a number of the most ridiculous value hikes that we’ve witnessed thus far on this new era of Nvidia graphics playing cards.

Additional arguments, as VideoCardz factors out, may also be piled on right here, such because the import tariffs courtesy of Trump. However finally, what we’re seeing with RTX 5090 pricing goes past the pale actually.

On this case, Zotac’s Strong OC is technically the entry-level RTX 5090 (it’s truly a step up, being the overclocked model, though it solely has a really modest overclock utilized – and apparently the bottom model isn’t listed on the US retailer any longer, anyway). The Strong OC actually shouldn’t be a lot above Nvidia’s MSRP, which is $1,999 (the worth of the Founders Version), however this GPU is now a whopping 35% dearer.

(I ought to make it clear that the Zotac retailer within the US is down proper now, as I write this, for upkeep apparently. May that imply pricing is being adjusted once more, after these studies have popped up? Probably, and I’ll regulate that.)

At any charge, the opposite argument I’ve seen is: nicely, the RTX 5090 fashions are all out of inventory anyway, so who cares what the worth is – it’s type of irrelevant. And whereas that’s definitely true, it is a short-term view and somewhat shortsighted as such. When stock does begin to filter again in, that jacked-up pricing is (presumably) nonetheless going to use (for a time, maybe, till provide and demand corrects additional).

What’s unlucky is {that a} sturdy uptick in RTX 5090 inventory was predicted to occur in the direction of the tip of March, the place we’re sat now, and there’s no signal of any such enhance in provide. What’s happening with that? The rumor may need been plain improper, or maybe Nvidia has rejigged its chip allocation, and stays simply too preoccupied with gross sales of heavyweight AI graphics playing cards (which use that very same GB202 chip because the RTX 5090).