EVGA and Zotac Raise GeForce RTX 30-Series Ampere GPU Pricing

If the shortages didn't already ruin the graphics card market, the new tariffs certainly will. Asus was the first manufacturer to manifest the increase in graphics card pricing, and according to a recent report fom The Verge (opens in new tab), EVGA and Zotac have also raised the pricing for their corresponding GeForce RTX 30-series (Ampere) products.

Nowadays, you can call it a blessing if you're one of the lucky ones to find a GeForce RTX 30-series graphics card in stock, much less at its MSRP. On top of that, the Trump administration has imposed a 25% tax on graphics cards that are manufactured in China, so the nightmare only gets worse. It's reasonable to assume that the bigger vendors have higher possibilities of absorbing the tariff so it won't reflect as much on the pricing. However, smaller manufacturers might not have the same leeway.

EVGA, for one, has already given its customers the heads-up on the brand's website. The new pricing went into effect as of January 11, but EVGA will respect the original pricing for customers who are on its Notify Queue system or Step-Up Queue until April 16.

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.

EVGA GeForce RTX 30-Series Pricing

We've compared EVGA's most and least expensive models from its GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 lineups, excluding the more specialized SKUs, such as the hybrid, watercooled or K|NGP|N models. EVGA has delivered on its promise to minimize the impact of the tariffs as the difference in pricing looks bearable, at least on the higher end cards.

The GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 showed increases up to 4.6% and 9.6%, respectively. In EVGA's case, the GeForce RTX 3070 suffered the most from the tariffs. The pricing for the GeForce RTX 3070 has gone up as much as 13.2%. We could see similar, or perhaps even larger, price increases on the RTX 3060 Ti and upcoming RTX 3060 cards.

Zotac GeForce RTX 30-Series Pricing

Unlike EVGA, the tariffs appear to have a greater impact on Zotac. The brand's GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards revealed a price spike of up to 22.6%. As for the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3070, the graphics cards now cost up to 13% and 20.7% more, respectively. Even the recently announced GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is selling for up to 20.5% more in comparison to just one month ago.

It should be pointed out that graphics cards aren't alone in this. The tariffs also affect motherboards as well. A previous report from a Chinese publication claimed that some of Intel's budget-oriented chipsets are in shortage. If we factor in the tariffs, we could see motherboard pricing soaring very soon.

All of this comes off as more salt on the wounds of already limited GPU supplies and elevated prices, and we'll likely see price increases on graphics cards using AMD GPUs as well. Nvidia's own Founders Edition cards haven't had official price increases yet. The RTX 3070 Founders Edition box still bears a "made in China" label, however, so we could see price changes there as well in the coming days.