Buyers of desktop graphics cards in South Korea face retail price increases of up to 30% this month. This sudden pricing shift affects the entire NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series lineup due to rising wafer production costs at TSMC and memory price spikes. Importers and local distributors have already begun adjusting retail prices on popular models.
According to an report by ZDNet Korea, the price increase stems directly from the cost of raw materials. NVIDIA packages its graphics processing units and high speed memory chips together into unified kits before selling them to brand manufacturers. TSMC raised its wafer manufacturing prices for advanced processes under 7 nanometers, while the price of GDDR7 memory modules reached over 20 dollars per unit. Because the bundled kits now cost more to produce, graphics card brands have no choice but to pass these expenses down to consumers. Prices are already climbing.
In Taiwan, local media outlets confirmed that NVIDIA notified major card manufacturers about the price hikes for both GDDR6 and GDDR7 memory kits. To prepare for the transition, major manufacturers temporarily halted hardware shipments. This has caused a supply squeeze, leaving local retailers with very little existing inventory at the older pricing structure.
Local price tracking services confirm that popular mid tier cards are experiencing immediate price hikes. The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti with 8GB of memory has jumped by roughly 100,000 won, placing it in the 700,000 won range. Stepping up to the RTX 5070 with 12GB of memory now costs around 1,100,000 won, which is an increase of about 200,000 won. The elite RTX 5090 with 32GB of memory has experienced the most dramatic surge, with some retailers listing the card at over 7,300,000 won, marking a rise of more than 1,500,000 won over recent weeks. Similar pricing shifts have already impacted markets in the United States and China.
This price hike comes at a difficult time for the DIY computer market. Prices for memory and solid state storage have already pushed budget conscious builders out of the market. High performance gaming systems require large storage drives and at least 32GB of memory, making full system upgrades incredibly expensive right now. Some distributors expect gamers to abandon full PC upgrades altogether, choosing instead to keep their existing systems and hunt for used graphics cards to save money.
