NVIDIA Announces GPU Kit Price Hikes Across the Board Amid DRAM Surge and HBM Capacity Constraints

NVIDIA has notified its major graphics card partners that GPU kits (GPU plus memory) will see across-the-board price increases, affecting both the new-architecture GDDR7 memory and the entire GeForce series of GDDR6 memory. Earlier in May, the company had already raised prices on the flagship RTX 5090 and RTX 5090 D V2 models; the current round extends the increases to other series. The root cause is a surge in upstream DRAM storage prices. The global DRAM market is dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, which together hold over 90% of the market share. Advanced DRAM production capacity is fixed; once a production line is used to manufacture HBM, it cannot produce GDDR memory. AI large model training and inference keep demand for HBM strong. HBM3E costs about $300 per unit, and an H200 GPU requires at least six, bringing the cost to nearly $2,000. HBM profit margins are far higher than those of ordinary GDDR, so storage suppliers prioritize allocating capacity to HBM. Consumer-grade GDDR capacity continues to be squeezed, and shrinking supply has driven up prices.

Graphics card makers face higher procurement costs; mainstream models have gross margins of only around ten percentage points, and memory price increases directly erode profits. Phone storage has also recently increased in price, making it difficult for budget phones priced around 1,000 yuan to survive. Memory and flash storage for notebooks and tablets have also risen. NVIDIA's gaming business is no longer the main revenue driver; its AI business contributes more to revenue.