Small Chinese firms and developers running AI models on local hardware now pay about RMB50,000 per top consumer card, and dealers expect high prices into early 2027.
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090, the company’s top consumer graphics card, is now quoted at more than RMB50,000 in Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei electronics market. A Daily Economic News reporter who visited on October 25 found spot quotes of RMB51,000 to RMB55,000, with one dealer asking RMB53,000 including tax for an Asus TUF model. The dealer said the same card sold for a little over RMB40,000 a month earlier. A day before, the 21st Century Business Herald reported channel quotes of RMB55,000 to RMB60,000 after visiting the market on October 23.
The rise began with a rumor that Nvidia would stop making the RTX 5090. Nvidia denies it. Jeff Fisher, the company’s senior vice president for personal computing, told the gaming site 4Gamers after an Nvidia event in Taipei on October 16 that the card "has definitely not been discontinued" and that Nvidia "will continue shipping," while conceding that "the supply chain is indeed a bit constrained," according to Dexerto, which translated the remarks from Chinese. The FPS Review reported that the card had disappeared from Nvidia’s and retailers’ online stores and that no restocking date was given.
The prices come from dealer interviews, and neither outlet quoted an analyst or published sales volumes. The two ranges reflect different days, shops and quote types: Daily Economic News reported spot prices, while the Herald reported channel quotes that it said move by hundreds of yuan within a day. Both show the card trading at more than three times its launch price, which the Herald put at about RMB15,000 to RMB16,000.
Prices have climbed across Nvidia’s consumer range
The increases reach down the RTX 50 lineup. The RTX 5080 launched at about RMB8,000 and is now quoted at RMB16,000 to RMB17,000, Daily Economic News reported; the Herald said it cost about RMB12,000 two weeks earlier. The entry-level RTX 5060 rose from about RMB2,300 to more than RMB3,600, according to the Herald. One dealer told Daily Economic News that cheaper cards were rising faster than expensive ones.
Board makers’ versions of the RTX 5090 from Asus, MSI and Colorful were all quoted above RMB50,000, with little gap between brands, Daily Economic News found. One dealer said prices had been rising since July and sped up in the past week. Xiong Rongrong, a manager at Jinshuoli Computer with 16 years in Huaqiangbei, told the Herald that the market "suddenly came alive" once dealers heard the RTX 5090 might no longer be supplied. Hard drives and processors were broadly stable, and memory prices dipped slightly from September to October, the Herald reported.
AI workloads and memory supply are pulling cards away from gamers
One dealer told Daily Economic News that most RTX 5090 buyers now use the card for AI work, such as running large models locally and generating images, though other dealers said gamers still buy it. The RTX 5090 carries 32GB of fast GDDR7 memory against 16GB on the RTX 5080, which limits the smaller card when running some large models, Daily Economic News noted.
Demand is also coming from abroad. Xiong said at least 10 overseas customers a day ask her for prices, with buyers from India, Russia, France, Italy and Brazil. They buy in bulk, from dozens to thousands of units, and were especially numerous during the October Canton Fair, the Herald reported. A staff member at Hengyao Computer told the Herald that Nvidia is giving priority to AI computing chips, which squeezes consumer output.
Memory is the other constraint. Graphics memory for consumer cards competes for advanced production lines with HBM, the stacked high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers, and Samsung, SK hynix and Micron have reportedly given 70% to 90% of that capacity to HBM, IT Home reported, citing EET-China. Chinese platforms are chasing Nvidia’s professional cards too: ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have ordered more than US$35 billion of RTX PRO 5500 cards, which are also in short supply.
Dealers are split on how long prices will hold
Some Huaqiangbei dealers expect high prices to last into 2027, while others told Daily Economic News that current levels are already deterring buyers and advised customers to wait. The Hengyao staff member told the Herald that the shortage is unlikely to ease until consumer chip capacity grows meaningfully, and expected increases to continue into early next year.
Online prices are lower for now. China’s Double 11 shopping festival has brought platform subsidies, and platforms reportedly receive different supply prices from offline dealers, widening the gap between the two channels, the Herald said. The clearest signal will be whether Nvidia’s promised shipments reach Huaqiangbei’s authorized distributors in volume, since the Hengyao staff member told the Herald that those distributors control supply and that agents set channel prices; Daily Economic News concluded that prices depend on how far supply actually recovers and on end demand.