EVGA and Zotac join others in raising the price of their graphics cards

A hot potato: More bad news for PC owners looking to upgrade their graphics cards: in addition to the GPUs being in extremely short supply, the expected price rises are starting to appear, with EVGA and Zotac becoming the latest firms to make their products more expensive.

This month, we heard that the Trump administration was imposing a 25 percent tax on graphics cards imported from China. The cards and motherboards were granted exemptions from import taxes in September, but that expired without renewal at the end of last year.

The taxes have exacerbated a market already suffering from supply shortages—grabbing an RTX 3000 series or Radeon RX 6000 card has proved almost impossible since they launched. The problem has become even worse as the value of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin rise, leading to more demand from miners; a situation that caused massive GPU price increases during 2017 and 2018.

‘Out of Stock,’ a phrase we’ve all become familiar with

Now, The Verge reports that EVGA and Zotac have raised their RTX 3000 series prices. The latter’s RTX 3070 XC3 Ultra Gaming has gone from $559 to $629, while the RTX 3080 XC3 Black Gaming leaped from $729 to $799.

EVGA has acknowledged the price jump at the top of its website.

“Due to ongoing events, EVGA has made price adjustments on the GeForce RTX 30 Series products. This change was necessary due to several factors and will be effective January 11, 2021. EVGA has worked to reduce and minimize these costs as much as possible. For those who are currently in the EVGA.com Notify Queue system or Step-Up Queue, EVGA will honor the original MSRP pricing through April 16th, 2021 if your purchase position is processed before this date,” the company writes.

Zotac’s RTX 3000 cards have seen an even larger price hike. Most are now between $90 and $100 more expensive, while the RTX 3090 has jumped by around $350 to $1,900.

Asus last week also raised the price of its graphics cards and motherboards.

The graphics card shortages are expected to last at least a few more months. But when availability does finally improve, don’t be surprised to find prices are still inflated.

Make sure to check out CES 2021 keynotes from Nvidia and AMD.