Asus is preparing a round of price hikes across its entire desktop motherboard catalog. Upstream material expenses and higher foundry fees from TSMC are forcing the hardware vendor to raise wholesale pricing by up to 10% on popular gaming lines next month. Retail shelves could feel the squeeze very quickly.
Supply chain reports from industry watcher ChannelGate reveal that motherboard production expenses jumped 10% to 15% recently. A primary catalyst is TSMC, which raised its chipset fabrication rates by roughly 10%. Previous minor bumps of 5 to 20 yuan barely dented the growing overhead. Vendors swallowed those losses during the third quarter to hit internal sales targets, but that buffer has ended.
Factory notices indicate that Asus will roll out a tiered pricing structure next month to absorb the higher bills. Budget friendly PRIME motherboards are expected to climb by roughly 5%. The mid tier TUF Gaming family faces an increase near 7%, while premium ROG hardware will jump by approximately 10%. Hardware distributors have been urged to stockpile inventory before the new wholesale rates take effect.
Other motherboard manufacturers are taking completely different paths in response to supply chain costs. ASRock chose to reduce prices on select enthusiast boards, dropping the X870 Pro RS WiFi by 120 yuan and trimming the Z890 Pro RS WiFi White by 50 yuan while keeping budget H610 and B760 pricing flat. Colorful took the opposite route by pulling back promotional rebates on entry level models like the B760, H610, and A520, effectively raising wholesale costs by 10 to 20 yuan. Gigabyte is facing inventory shortages on high volume boards as factories struggle to fulfill 100% of order demand, forcing suppliers into strict allocation systems.
