Graphics card prices in China face hikes as Nvidia shifts production towards AI GPUs

Graphics card prices in mainland China are reportedly set to increase further as manufacturers adjust their pricing strategies. According to reports, Asus is preparing to raise the price of its RTX 5070 cards by between 150 and 300 RMB, which translates to roughly $22 to $45. Meanwhile, Gigabyte has already implemented a price increase of 200 RMB, or about $30, for its RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU. These adjustments arrive amid a volatile hardware landscape that could also trigger knock-on effects for global pricing across both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards.

AMD has likewise raised prices across several of its own hardware offerings. The RX 9070 XT has gone up by 200 RMB, while both the 16GB and 8GB versions of the RX 9060 XT have increased by up to 250 RMB. Additionally, the RX 7650 GRE has seen a price hike of 400 RMB, approximately $60. These widespread increases follow prior reports from July indicating that AMD intended to raise GPU and VRAM partner bundle prices by 10%, compounded by ongoing memory supply pressures.

The production shifts behind these adjustments are heavily tied to the surging demand for artificial intelligence hardware. Nvidia has actively reduced gaming GPU production, recently trimming its shipping forecast by 15% to 20% to accommodate manufacturing capacity for AI GPUs. Financial reports highlight the immense profitability of this sector, with Nvidia's data centre segment generating $89 billion in a single quarter, alongside a planned $13 billion acquisition of AI development platform Hugging Face. Insights shared by German outlet 3D Center further clarify that while Nvidia continues to produce 4nm GB20x Blackwell chips, the available stock is being redirected toward the professional and enterprise segments rather than consumer GeForce graphics cards, leading to constrained supply and rising consumer prices.