Industry analysts anticipate that the retail valuation of the RTX 5090 could eventually soar to the $5,000 mark.
Graphics card pricing from both AMD and NVIDIA is projected to undergo a substantial escalation during the opening months of 2026. This trend is driven by a dramatic surge in the cost of DRAM (specifically GDDR6 and GDDR7), which can represent up to 80% of a GPU’s total manufacturing expense. Initial reports surfaced via Board Channels and were subsequently corroborated by major tech outlets including VideoCardz, Wccftech, and TweakTown.
AMD is expected to initiate its price adjustments as early as January 2026. The current RDNA 4 lineup (RX 9000 series) is limited to just a handful of models, while the majority of the previous generation has already reached its end-of-life status. Although the flagship RX 9070 XT only recently aligned with its MSRP, it now faces the risk of becoming significantly more expensive. Add-in-board (AIB) partners are likely to see the first wave of increases in January, with additional fluctuations expected in the months that follow.
NVIDIA is set to follow its competitor’s lead in February 2026. While certain brands implemented minor price corrections in December 2025, the primary market shift is slated for February. The specific timing and magnitude of these increases for each individual brand will remain at the discretion of the hardware manufacturers.
These hikes are not expected to be isolated events; both companies may continue to recalibrate prices on a monthly basis throughout much of 2026. While the exact percentage of the increase remains unconfirmed, the three-to-fourfold rise in DRAM procurement costs has led some experts to warn that retail prices could ultimately double. This volatility will most severely impact enthusiast-grade hardware, particularly the RTX 50 series, where premium iterations of the flagship RTX 5090 are already commanding high prices and could soon approach the $5,000 threshold.
Source: iXBT.games