EVGA and Zotac join others in raising the price of their graphics cards

[midian182]

A hot potato: More bad news for PC owners looking to upgrade their graphics cards: in addition to the GPUs being in extremely short supply, the expected price rises are starting to appear, with EVGA and Zotac becoming the latest firms to make their products more expensive.

This month, we heard that the Trump administration was imposing a 25 percent tax on graphics cards imported from China. The cards and motherboards were granted exemptions from import taxes in September, but that expired without renewal at the end of last year.

The taxes have exacerbated a market already suffering from supply shortages—grabbing an RTX 3000 series or Radeon RX 6000 card has proved almost impossible since they launched. The problem has become even worse as the value of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin rise, leading to more demand from miners; a situation that caused massive GPU price increases during 2017 and 2018.

'Out of Stock,' a phrase we've all become familiar with

Now, The Verge reports that EVGA and Zotac have raised their RTX 3000 series prices. The latter’s RTX 3070 XC3 Ultra Gaming has gone from $559 to $629, while the RTX 3080 XC3 Black Gaming leaped from $729 to $799.

EVGA has acknowledged the price jump at the top of its website.

“Due to ongoing events, EVGA has made price adjustments on the GeForce RTX 30 Series products. This change was necessary due to several factors and will be effective January 11, 2021. EVGA has worked to reduce and minimize these costs as much as possible. For those who are currently in the EVGA.com Notify Queue system or Step-Up Queue, EVGA will honor the original MSRP pricing through April 16th, 2021 if your purchase position is processed before this date,” the company writes.

Zotac's RTX 3000 cards have seen an even larger price hike. Most are now between $90 and $100 more expensive, while the RTX 3090 has jumped by around $350 to $1,900.

Asus last week also raised the price of its graphics cards and motherboards.

The graphics card shortages are expected to last at least a few more months. But when availability does finally improve, don’t be surprised to find prices are still inflated.

Make sure to check out CES 2021 keynotes from Nvidia and AMD.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/88271-evga-zotac-join-others-raising-price-their-graphics.html

 

[nnguy2]

Hurray for tariffs and trade wars, paid for by the consumers!

 

[Shadowboxer]

There’s going to be more of this. These companies are seeing their stock cleared out within hours of going on sale, they will want to make more money out of it rather than giving those profits to scalpers. It also may help stock levels improve as less people will buy the cards if they are priced higher.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I had to stalk Microcenter waiting for deliveries.

They do get deliveries, completely unannounced every week, with 3000 series cards, but ya gotta basically live near one and check them every single day.

 

[mistyrain]

There is one thing here. As in the keynote mentioned AMD is not affected. As you see so far manufacturers mention only RTX cards pricing. Not sure how but at this points only they get a hit from that.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Nope, no corporate collusion there. Just ask any apologist for unbridled capitalism.

 

[fps4ever]

Correction, bad time to upgrade as a gamer, miners will pay...double whammy as manufacturers continue to win.

 

[duckofdeath]

Big Corp is having a laugh. Time to use some of the massive profits on buying more abusive access at the FCC.

 

[Kosmoz]

This tariff trade war excuse is going to be used for the entire world, it's not just in the US that the prices are getting even higher than they already are... this is beyond stupid.

These companies won't get any money from me for these products with their scalper prices!

 

[Dimitriid]

This tariff trade war excuse is going to be used for the entire world, it's not just in the US that the prices are getting even higher than they already are... this is beyond stupid.

These companies won't get any money from me for these products with their scalper prices!

I have to agree: the tiny increase seems pretty ridiculous vs the actual prices you see in the event you see this cards online which is always from scalpers that are allowed on store fronts like Amazon or Newegg. None of the cards are under 1000 let alone the 3080 so it really does feel like a cop out to just avoid confronting the fact that they are again focusing on selling to crypto miners and probably directly from distributors without even showing up much volume on retail stores at all by now.

So it's going to be another full year without GPUs if not more between the botched launches and now the bitcoin/ethereum craze and that is IF the coins crash and it becomes less profitable. They could have figure out a way to block consumer cards from unsigned compute at the bios level to at least have *SOME* volume for customers (Even if they keep dedicating most of their yields to miners) but both AMD and Nvidia continue to show they're so arrogant and short sighted they prefer to keep quiet and make lots of short term profits from miners and just let all their gaming market die out.

 

[Homerlovesbeer]

Surely this should only affect US pricing not global pricing as the tariffs are US only?

 

[veLa]

Hooray, price hikes for everyone!

 

[gamerk2]

Hence the reason why Trumps trade war was always going to fail. Since there's not much competition within the US to produce these goods, there's nothing stopping companies from forcing consumers to just eat the increased prices to cover the tariffs.

Outside of Intel and Global Foundries New York facility, there really isn't anywhere in the US that can handle this level of chip production.

 

[SirDigby]

I love how vague the "current circumstances" are, so when this doesn't actually address any of the problems consumers are currently having, so when we continue to have problems, they can just say "no not THOSE problems, this OTHER problem" which will no doubt be something stupid like shortage on the NVIDA badge that sticks on the front of your PC to show off.

 

[Biostud]

Phew, just a US problem

 

[nodfor]

Reviewers who still use charts with performance per $ should either remove said charts or use the prices that these goods actually sell for. Nvidia got a ton of good press coverage for the low MSRPs, but since these msrps rarely occur in actual transactions, the products should be evaluated on their actual retail prices.

You can't get good performance per value recommendations because of the price of the FE cards, when the vast majority of cards sold are from AIBs with significantly higher pricing.

 

[Avro Arrow]

It's getting to the point that the level of greed involved here is going to open a window of opportunity for more than just Intel to walk through. If prices keep going as they are, I wouldn't be surprised to see the two non-Big-Three GPU makers that still exist take another shot at the PC gaming market. Matrox and S3 still exist and, with the right investors, could possibly compete in the gaming market again like the Matrox Millenium and S3 Virge did back in the day.

 

[Kosmoz]

Surely this should only affect US pricing not global pricing as the tariffs are US only?

It should, in fair and normal world. It will affect everyone in our (crazy) world...

Phew, just a US problem

*Throws a bucket of water on his face!* Wake up!

 

[nodfor]

<< To all my pascal gamer friends, it is safe to upgrade now >>

So sayeth the man in the leather jacket.

 

[GEEM13]

I had to stalk Microcenter waiting for deliveries.

They do get deliveries, completely unannounced every week, with 3000 series cards, but ya gotta basically live near one and check them every single day.

Damn I wish I had the free time to "stalk" a MicroCenter everyday to then scalp the cards. Incredible!

 

[punctualturn]

So a console is the proper way to go this round.

Oh well.

 

[fps4ever]

Damn I wish I had the free time to "stalk" a MicroCenter everyday to then scalp the cards. Incredible!

Those magical places are few and far between.

 

[GEEM13]

Those magical places are few and far between.

I have one right near me; but I don't "stalk" one just to snag as many as I can get to then scalp them and then post about it on a enthusiast tech site.

 

[EdmondRC]

Glad I got an RTX 3080 at regular price, those increases are pretty substantial. Not much in the way of MSRP available now unless you get lucky enough to get the FEs from Best Buy.

 

[opckieran]

Nope, no corporate collusion there. Just ask any apologist for unbridled capitalism.

Man, some people just can’t let go of their Soviet ternary calculators!