Key Takeaways
1. Rising GPU Prices: The prices of popular GPUs like the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 have significantly increased, making them unaffordable for many gamers, with the RTX 5070 Ti priced around $1,000.
2. Supply Issues: The RTX 5070 Ti has limited supply, causing its price to rise by 25% since November 2025, with similar increases for the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090.
3. Competitive Pricing of AMD: The RX 9070 XT has only seen a 7% price increase globally, making it a more affordable alternative to Nvidia’s offerings, priced around $700.
4. Opportunity for AMD: The rising prices and supply issues of Nvidia GPUs present a chance for AMD to gain market share, particularly with the competitively priced RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT.
5. Market Positioning: The RX 9070 XT offers better performance than the RTX 5070 Ti at a lower price, making it an attractive choice for gamers seeking mid-range GPUs with good value.
The time when gamers could easily find affordable desktop gaming PCs appears to be over, due to increasing prices of memory, storage, CPUs, and GPUs. A recent investigation by Hardware Unboxed into the prices of AMD and Nvidia GPUs shows that the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 are now largely inaccessible for many gamers. Currently, the RTX 5070 Ti is priced at about $1,000, while the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are around $1,400 and $3,500 in the US, respectively.
Price Increases for GPUs
The RTX 5070 Ti, which seems to have been significantly limited in supply, has an average price that is 25% higher in February 2026 compared to November 2025 across the 10 regions analyzed by Hardware Unboxed. The price increases for the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are 25% and 32%, respectively. Interestingly, the RX 9070 XT, which is a direct competitor to the RTX 5070 Ti, has only seen an average price rise of 7% globally since November 2025.
In the US, however, the RX 9070 XT has experienced a more significant price increase of 21% since November 2025. Even so, the RX 9070 XT is considerably more affordable than the RTX 5070 Ti, priced at around $700.
RX 9070 Price Stability
Similarly, the RX 9070 has only increased in price by about 7% worldwide and 6% in the US, making it just $20 above its official MSRP. On Nvidia’s end, the RTX 5070 has seen a 15% price increase in the US since November 2025. However, since the RTX 5070 was already below its $550 MSRP back then, it can still be purchased for $550 today.
Unfortunately, Nvidia seems to have significantly restricted the supply of the RTX 5070 Ti. This implies that once the existing stock is gone, any new restocks of the RTX 5070 Ti will likely lead to even higher prices. While this is disappointing for gamers, it gives AMD a golden chance to capture some much-needed market share.
AMD’s Opportunity
Aside from the RTX 5090, which has always been hard for gamers to acquire, the price increases of the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 create an excellent opening for AMD to take some market share from Nvidia. Hardware Unboxed notes that the rate at which the prices of the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 have gone up suggests that price gouging may be at play.
By either supplying more units or lowering its own profit margins, AMD seems to have managed to keep the prices of the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT relatively stable. Although these GPUs are now pricier than they were a few months ago, they are still much more reasonably priced compared to the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080.
Thus, if AMD can make the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT more accessible, gamers in search of a mid-range GPU with 16 GB of VRAM at a fair price will likely be drawn to the RX 9070 or the RX 9070 XT. This will certainly position the RX 9070 XT as the top mid-range choice, especially since it not only surpasses the RTX 5070 Ti in performance but also comes at a much lower price.
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