Consumers in China will see a price hike on high-end Nvidia graphics cards, most notably the RTX 4090D and other GPUs.
Usually, as the life cycle of a generation of graphics cards continues, we expect to see prices slowly decrease as companies seek to offload stock before the next generation hits shelves. Unfortunately, that is not happening in China, as US sanctions squeeze the GPU market for Nvidia and its board partners.
A report from the Chinese Board Channels forums (via VideoCardz) shows that several of Nvidia’s board partners plan to raise prices on GeForce RTX 40 and RTX 30 series GPUs by up to 10% in the Chinese market.
ASUS, Colorful, GALAX, Gigabyte, and ZOTAC all plan price increases on several GPU models, including the GeForce RTX 4090D.
A price increase of 10% does not appear to be very impactful on the surface, but the Chinese market for consumer gaming components is very competitive. The price hike could put Nvidia products at a disadvantage against rivals such as AMD.
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For example, after the price increase, the GeForce RTX 4060 is 50 RMD more expensive than the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE.
These price hikes are believed to be in response to US sanctions, which have restricted sales of Nvidia GPUs to China to curtail the sales of high-end AI chips. Several GPUs have seen significant redesigns to comply with sanctions while still profiting from the Chinese market.
Despite the change, several Chinese retailers are still selling most Nvidia GPU models at 5% to 15% below MSRP. The exception is the GeForce RTX 4090D, a card that was redesigned to comply with restrictions but still has the potential that AI vendors can take advantage of.