MSI Raising Graphics Cards Prices Again in China, According to Leak

MSI Is Raising Graphics Cards Prices Again in China, According to LeakThe costs continue to soar.Ever since the RAM crisis kicked off in earnest in November 2025, pretty much every component in a gaming PC has grown more expensive. Now, less than a month after the RTX 5080 hit $2,000 here in the U.S., it's reportedly going to get even more expensive in China. According to a post on ChannelGate, a Chinese tech insider board on WeChat, and spotted by Nvidia leaker Harukaze5719 on Twitter, MSI has increased GPU prices in China across the board, but the biggest increase is hitting the RTX 5080. Nvidia's penultimate GPU is going going up from 1,300 to 8,000 Yuan, or $194 to $1,199. However, lower-specced GPUs will have much less of a price increase, with the RTX 5060 only going up between 200 to 500 Yuan, or $30 to $75. When Nvidia unveiled its Blackwell lineup of graphics cards, the RTX 5080 was already expensive, starting at $999, even though it was hard to find at that price for a while. But right when prices started to normalize, the RAM crisis happened, and prices have been steadily going up since February. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 – PhotosEven according to the leaks, these price increases are only going to hit in China, but it's likely that they'll eventually filter through to the U.S. At the time of writing, the RTX 5080 starts at around $2,199 on Newegg, and if these price increases came to the U.S., that'd go up to at least $2,400, and would likely be even higher.These Chinese price increases are coming a couple of weeks after Nvidia removed the RTX 5080 from its own storefront, due to hardware shortages. Nvidia has told me that it's going to continue making the RTX 5080 and that it'll reappear on the Nvidia marketplace when supply has stabilized, but with these kinds of price increases, it's anyone's guess on when that'll happen. It's clear that the RAM crisis is going to worsen a bit in 2027. In its latest earnings call, Samsung, which makes a huge portion of the world's RAM supply, has said that it expects supply to tighten in the next year. Meanwhile, multiple RAM manufacturers have sold through their entire manufacturing capacity through the next year, leaving very little for consumers. And even though AI companies are getting a lion's share of the world's memory supply, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview last month that it's "quite terrible" that people have RAM in their own PCs. Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. She's been covering gaming hardware for more than a decade for IGN, TechRadar, Gizmodo, PC Gamer and more. You can follow her @JackiecobraIn This Article