- A new report estimates GPU prices are up by 15% globally over the past three months
- Higher-end Nvidia graphics cards have been hit the hardest by price hikes
- The US is suffering from some of the most eye-watering price increases
If you needed any confirmation that GPU prices are rising, a new report shows that graphics cards are definitely getting more expensive across the globe – particularly for some Nvidia models.
As VideoCardz highlighted, TechSpot compiled some statistics which involved tracking 14 GPUs (from AMD, Intel and Nvidia) across 10 regions globally, using local price comparison websites to find the cheapest products from retailers in those countries. Only prices for models in stock and available to buy were used, as you might imagine (sold-out cheap GPUs aren’t any good to anyone).
TechSpot collected the initial data on pricing in November 2025, before graphics card pricing started to spike – a side-effect of RAM shortages, which hit video memory too, of course. The second set of data was gathered this month, providing a roughly three-month snapshot of the rising costs of GPUs across the globe.
Overall, there’s been a 15% increase across all models and regions on average. To put that another way, a graphics card that was $300 a few months ago now costs $345.
Nvidia graphics cards are clearly the hardest hit by price inflation here. It probably comes as no surprise to you that the RTX 5090 is the worst offender, as we’ve already observed that the asking price for this flagship Blackwell GPU has gone through the roof since the start of 2026 (and it was already pricey).
TechSpot estimates the overall increase for the RTX 5090 globally to be 31%, although in the US it’s particularly hefty at 40% (it’s actually 50%, or just over, in India and Poland).
The situation with Nvidia’s RTX 5080 is almost as bad, with a 25% increase, the same as the RTX 5070 Ti. Again, in the US, the inflation of those two GPUs is around 40%, a good deal heftier than in many other countries.
Lower-end Nvidia models aren’t faring quite so badly with inflation. RTX 5060 models are only up 10 to 11%, which isn’t so terrible (especially not when compared with the RAM price rises out there, of course). The RTX 5070 is up 14%, but there’s a notable outlier: the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is up by 22% globally.
Away from Team Green, the increases with AMD GPUs are not nearly as bad. The worst offender on the Radeon side of the fence is the RX 9060 XT 16GB, which is up by 15% worldwide, certainly an unwelcome jump. RX 9070 models are only up by 7 or 8%, though, which is relatively palatable.
There are some more uncomfortable shifts in the US retail market, mind, with the 9070 XT up by 21% in the last three months, and the 9060 XT 8GB has jumped by 20%. So that’s quite brutal in both cases.
As for Intel, the Arc B580 has seen its price rise by 11% globally, but the B570 has only witnessed inflation to the tune of 4%.
Analysis: a worrying future?
Theories have been floating around about Nvidia prioritizing AI GPUs over gaming (GeForce) models since the supply of VRAM got shakier, and this evidence appears to back up those notions. Obviously, we can’t read too much into this, but whichever way you slice and dice these stats, Nvidia’s graphics cards are very much hit by the worst of the increases, particularly at the higher-end of the GPU scale.
The RTX 5090 remains at a ludicrous price in the US, frankly, with the cheapest model at Newegg currently maintaining an asking price of $3,600. (Meaning that buying a whole prebuilt Alienware PC with an RTX 5090 inside is only about 25% more expensive, and you’re getting a whole lot of matching high-end kit for the additional premium, including some seriously expensive RAM, naturally).
The rumor that supply is dwindling with the RTX 5070 Ti – which has 16GB of VRAM – and also the RTX 5060 Ti with that same video memory loadout, appears to be backed up by what TechSpot observes here. Those GPUs are up strongly in price (25% and 22% respectively), suggesting that stock could be getting leaner – which would cause prices to rise due to demand.
All of this is grist for the rumor mill theory that Nvidia’s graphics cards with higher VRAM loadouts are suffering as AI GPUs (with whopping memory pools) need to take priority, as they make a lot more in the way of profit for Team Green.
The worry here is what the future holds, and whether this kind of rise is going to be sustained – or indeed spread more to AMD’s RDNA 4 GPUs. With no signs of the RAM pricing crisis abating, the knock-on effects for graphics card makers are likely to continue to be felt perhaps even more keenly as this first half of 2026 progresses.
Building a PC has certainly become a miserable business, with the huge hike in the cost of system RAM, along with storage following a similar upwards pricing trajectory, and now GPUs are causing a bit of extra chaos in the mix.
The best graphics cards for all budgets
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