NVIDIA Ends Open Price Program: What It Means for GPU Pricing
Recent reports from Roman "der8auer" Hartung and HardwareLuxx confirm that NVIDIA has officially discontinued its Open Price Program (OPP). This initiative was designed to help NVIDIA’s add-in card (AIC) partners offer graphics cards at manufacturer-suggested retail prices (MSRPs). With the OPP now concluded, GPU prices from third-party manufacturers are expected to become more volatile and may exceed previous MSRP levels.
How the Open Price Program Worked
The OPP allowed NVIDIA’s AIC partners to sell custom-designed GPUs at consistent, recommended prices. NVIDIA supplied its partners with GPU dies and GDDR7 memory as a bundled kit, sold at fixed rates. Partners would then assemble these components onto their own printed circuit boards (PCBs), creating a variety of third-party graphics card models. The program’s structure helped maintain price stability and made GPUs more attractive to consumers by keeping them at or near MSRP.
Rising Memory Costs and Supply Chain Challenges
The end of the OPP comes amid significant increases in GDDR7 memory prices, driven by global supply shortages. As memory becomes scarcer, costs have risen, and NVIDIA is now passing these additional expenses on to its AIC partners. This shift means that manufacturers are no longer able to rely on NVIDIA’s price support, making it likely that retail prices for new GPUs will climb. Despite these challenges, NVIDIA continues to supply GDDR7 memory directly to its partners, sparing them the need to source memory independently.
Impact on GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 Production
There has been speculation about the future of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, as both the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 utilize the same GB203 base die and 16 GB of GDDR7 memory. While rumors suggested a discontinuation of the RTX 5070 Ti, current information indicates that production will continue, albeit at a reduced scale. NVIDIA is prioritizing the RTX 5080, which carries a higher MSRP, to maximize profitability amid constrained memory supplies.
In the manufacturing process, chips that meet the RTX 5080’s performance and power requirements are allocated to that model. Those that do not fully meet these criteria are repurposed for the RTX 5070 Ti through a process known as binning. This strategy allows NVIDIA to optimize silicon yields without increasing overall production costs, as both GPUs are derived from the same die family.
What to Expect for Future GPU Pricing
With the conclusion of the Open Price Program and ongoing memory supply constraints, consumers should anticipate higher and more variable prices for NVIDIA graphics cards. The market is likely to see increased price differentiation among AIC partners, reflecting the true costs of components and manufacturing. As the industry adapts to these changes, staying informed about supply chain developments and pricing trends will be essential for anyone considering a new GPU purchase.
