List price for RTX 50-series GPUs might be officially dead

By Jacob Roach Published February 6, 2025

There’s no doubt that Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series GPUs are expensive, despite ranking among some of the best graphics cards you can buy. It’s looking like prices will remain high in the immediate future. Both MSI and Asus have introduced price increases for their RTX 50-series models, with MSI completely doing away with cards at list price, as reported by VideoCardz.

The new RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 are sold out everywhere, but MSI and Asus are two brands that still list official prices online. You can’t buy these cards, but it’s a look inside where prices are headed once cards become available again. MSI has completely done away with models at MSRP, with its most inexpensive card, the RTX 5080 Ventus, now listed for $1,140. Most of MSI’s RTX 5080 offerings range from $1,300 to $1,500, marking anywhere from a $300 to $500 increase over list price.

The situation isn’t better for the RTX 5090. MSI’s most inexpensive model is $2,380, which is $380 over list price, and all of its other offerings are north of $2,580.

Asus has one model available at list price, the Prime RTX 5080, at $1,000, but it’s currently on sale despite being out of stock. The official price is $1,265. For the RTX 5090, Asus is offering it at $2,750, with its flagship liquid-cooled ROG Astral model clocking in at $3,410.

Although prices have gone up at retailers as demand outweighs supply, these are the prices being handed down from Nvidia’s board partners. In other words, they’re official price increases, not simply retailers capitalizing on demand.

I wouldn’t hold out hope for getting an RTX 50-series GPU at list price. It’s not going to happen, particularly for the high-end models. We saw this play out in the previous generation with the RTX 4090, and even with the RTX 4080 Super. Despite Nvidia announcing a price reduction for the RTX 4080 Super, the card still commonly sold for $300 to $500 over list price. Even today, you won’t find an RTX 4080 Super at list price.

We’ll probably see that play out again for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. If you weren’t lucky enough to score one at list price when the cards were released last week, you probably won’t have another chance to get one. That’s not just due to overwhelming demand, either.

For starters, rumor has it that the RTX 5090 may not be back in stock for four months. When the card becomes available again, we’ll probably see a replay of release day with the new models selling out in minutes, just at prices slightly higher than MSRP. On top of that, there aren’t any alternatives to the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. AMD isn’t releasing a flagship GPU this generation, and Nvidia’s last-gen offerings have been out of stock for months.

It doesn’t look like the pricing situation will change unless, for some reason, demand completely falls off a cliff and retailers are left with RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 models they can’t sell — and I doubt that’ll happen. If you weren’t among the lucky few to buy one of these cards at list price, I’d recommend saving up your pennies or exercising some patience so that you’ll be able to catch up in the next generation.