Unfortunately, if replacing your aging graphics card was on your itinerary for the year, you’re probably out of luck. The lack of memory that we can thank AI for has pushed prices into the stratosphere. For example, a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (a powerful graphics card that far outperforms consoles like the PS5) costs north of $900, a price increase of over 36% from June 2026 – not to mention the card originally launched at just $549. Of course, the RAM crisis is clearly the main culprit behind why graphics cards are so expensive, but it started long before AI decided to eat up all our memory.
Stating the obvious: graphics cards are complex. At the heart of a high-end GeForce RTX 5090 (a card with a launch MSRP of $1,999) is the GPU, a dedicated processor that does graphics rendering. A graphics card also has its own dedicated memory. In the case of the aforementioned RTX 5090, you have 32 GB of VRAM to work with. Other components include an I/O interface, circuit board, cooling system, and even its own BIOS. When you think about it, it’s its own little computer, so it’s still going to cost more than a simple processor.
You should also consider additional costs generated by third-party manufacturers. GPU makers like AMD and Nvidia sell their chips to third-party companies who ultimately produce graphics cards and add their own custom components like PCBs and coolers. Add in rising prices, driven by cryptocurrency mining and component shortages dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s why powerful graphics cards have been like solid gold for nearly a decade.
How graphics cards have become more expensive over the years
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Talking about cryptocurrency mining, it involves creating new cryptocurrency coins by validating transactions on blockchain networks. Unfortunately, graphics cards speed up this process. Around 2017 or so, cryptocurrency miners began purchasing multiple cards and running them in parallel to validate blocks faster and increase their profits. This led to significant shortages and, as a result, a massive price spike. By how much? A GTX 1080 Ti card originally cost around $900, but growing demand pushed its price up to $2,700 at one point.
Only a few years later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and further decimated supply chains, which certainly didn’t help solve the already existing component shortage. The world eventually recovered, but prices never returned to what they were before. People continued to buy graphics cards even when things were at their most extreme, so many retailers and manufacturers never bothered to adjust their prices. Ultimately, supply and demand, with a hint of greed, took over, and high-end graphics cards costing over a thousand dollars became something gamers began to accept.
It is impossible to say when (or if) the current memory crisis will end. An RTX 5090 costs over $4,000 (the price of a used Toyota from the early 2000s), so if you haven’t built an elite gaming rig before this latest price hike, it’s probably too late to the race – unless you mind cashing in on a premium, of course. Fortunately, GPUs can last a long time according to owners, which means that even if you have something underpowered, you can still play plenty of fun games until the memory crisis passes, or at least when things become a little more affordable.
