Despite an initial effort to bring down the prices of graphics cards with the new generation of RTX 3000 and RX 6000 series GPUs, they have all been in vain. With cryptocurrency miners driving up the price and killing availability of major GPUs at the top end of the performance spectrum, there was much excitement about Nvidia's upcoming RTX 3060. But it seems add-in-board partners like MSI, Asus, and Zotac will be selling their custom variants at a 50% markup to take advantage of the situation.
The RTX 3060 was originally supposed to go on sale for $320 and the reference version from Nvidia may well sell at that price. Asus, MSI, and Zotac, however, will be selling their versions between $485 and $500. That's as much as a Founders Edition RTX 3070 — a far more powerful GPU.
This is also way more expensive than the RTX 3060 Ti, which is one step above the RTX 3060 and was originally priced at $400. When its stock becomes more widely available we might see price rises to go along with it.
That's not even the highest price we've seen from the new custom cards, however. As WCCFTech reports, the most expensive RTX 3060 might cost as much as $515. A ridiculous price considering where it was supposed to be priced initially. That won't hold back miners, but it might give gamers pause for thought, only exacerbating the problem and driving up prices further.
Nvidia has claimed, however, that is incorporating a hash limited in RTX 3060s to help curb this problem. Whether that will be leveraged by third parties, though, remains to be seen.
Image source: Coreteks