German publication Computerbase.de spotted that Nvidia silently increased the pricing of the RTX 30-series Founders Edition graphics cards in the EU. The new pricing represents a 5 to 6.5% increase across the lineup, but that is more significant than it sounds — that translates to $100 Euros for the RTX 3090.
We reached out to Nvidia to ask if the company would also hike prices in the United States and other regions. Nvidia gave Tom's Hardware the following succinct response:
"No. It is related to exchange rate fluctuation. That is all." - Nvidia representative.
MSRPs are largely meaningless in these days of GPU shortages. Still, the price hikes for the Founder's Edition cards are discouraging because Nvidia is the only outlet that sells the cards at recommended pricing in the EU — at least when they're available. They currently aren't.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Old Price | New Price | Increase Price/Percent |
| GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | 419 Euros | 439 Euros | 20 Euros / 5% |
| GeForce RTX 3070 | 519 Euros | 549 Euros | 30 Euros / 6% |
| GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | 619 Euros | 649 Euros | 30 Euros / 5% |
| GeForce RTX 3080 | 719 Euros | 759 Euros | 40 Euros / 6% |
| GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | 1,119 Euros | 1,269 Euros | 70 Euros / 6% |
| GeForce RTX 3090 | 1,549 Euros | 1,649 Euros | 100 Euros / 6.5% |
*Table data sourced from Computerbase.de
The price increases mark the second time Nvidia has increased GPU pricing in the EU, with the last hike of 3 to 4% occurring in January 2021 due to a change in tax rates. This time around, Nvidia says the new increase is simply tied to the current exchange rate. It's hard to ascertain how many units the company sells directly to customers, but it likely isn't a significant quantity, meaning the increase probably won't impact many customers.
At present, Nvidia doesn't sell directly to customers in the US, instead opting to use Best Buy as its exclusive partner for Founders Edition cards. While there have been GPU drops of 17,000 cards (across the US) in the past, that's a relatively insignificant number. GPU prices on places like eBay continue to be far higher than MSRPs, and places like Newegg aren't far off the eBay prices — and then usually only if you get selected in a Newegg Shuffle.
In the end, finding the best graphics cards will continue to be a tough challenge, regardless of the geographic region. However, Nvidia's Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has stated that we can expect supply to improve in the second half of the year. This is when the company is expected to introduce its new 40-Series cards that will reportedly be fabbed at TSMC. That should open up more supply as the company will continue to sell the RTX 30-Series cards fabbed at Samsung foundries.
Unfortunately, given the ongoing shortages of other componentry needed to build graphics cards, the additional supply might not help pricing too much, though. Here's hoping.
