Nvidia RTX 50 graphics cards see drastic rises above retail price, as AI memory boom continues

In normal times, we'd expect to see a GPU series that's already been on the market for over a year to start seeing discounts below its original MSRP. However, with memory demand continuing to outstrip supply thanks primarily to an AI boom, that's unfortunately not the case. As first reported by Tom's Hardware, the US prices of Nvidia's RTX 50 series of GPUs, which originally launched at the start of 2025, have seen drastic price rises over the last couple of months.

The report on Tom's Hardware references median pricing on US retailer Newegg, with prices rising up to 40% in August 2026 compared to June 2026. The card worst affected was the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, which carried a median price of $569.99 in June, but now sits at $804.99. The 8GB variant of the RTX 5060 Ti saw a comparatively lower rise from $469.99 to $529.99, highlighting how memory shortages are contributing to these price hikes. The RTX 5070 was also hit hard, with a rise over the same period from $659.99 to $899.99.

These specific models are some of the most popular Nvidia RTX 50 GPUs for budget-conscious PC builders, so it's a shame to see some rise in price so dramatically. Higher-end options within the RTX 50 lineup, such as the RTX 5080 and 5090, only saw single-digit percentage rises in price over the same period. But with four-figure price tags initially, they were already out of the reach of many PC gaming builds.

It's not just a US problem, either. A look at pricing on Amazon UK's store through the CamelCamelCamel price tracker shows a similar story, albeit over a slightly longer time frame. One example of the 16GB RTX 5060 Ti now sits at £484.50 ($654.84), up from a low of £399.99 ($540.62) in January 2026 - a rise of around 21%. Other GPUs tracked show a similar pattern, and unfortunately, there's no sign of GPUs getting cheaper any time soon.