Following a rumor that NVIDIA plans to launch its next round of Blackwell-based RTX 50 series GPUs next month comes another regarding MSRP. Manufacturer-suggested recommended pricing has become a bit of a controversial topic with the latest round of graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA. Board partners for both GPU manufacturers have had limited product availability, selling out in seconds or less in NVIDIA’s case with AMD managing to at least last close to a week. In particular, board partners have offered minimal models for each product stack and have also been spotted raising prices or removing MSRP models shortly after their launch. This has led those seeking a new graphics card to pay as much as two to three times more than MSRP for a new model if they can get one without sourcing through a scalper.
According to embargo documents obtained by VideoCardz NVIDIA is changing things up for the upcoming GeForce RTX 5060 series launch. It’s already been confirmed that the RTX 5060 Ti will launch in two variants featuring either 8 GB or 16 GB GDDR7 memory. The RTX 5060 is expected to launch in only one SKU with 8 GB of GDDR7 VRAM.
Latest Rumored Details for RTX 5060 Series launch:
- Official announcement to happen on April 15. This aligns with the previous rumor that the RTX 5060 Ti will launch on April 16.
- GeForce RTX 5060 will reportedly launch in May and feature 8 GB of GDDR7.
- NVIDIA no longer requires separate MSRP and non-MSRP review embargo days. Both can reportedly posted on the same day now. This had been a bit of a strange requirement with Founders Edition embargo reviews lifting the day before partner cards. If true all review embargos would lift the same day moving forward.
- Last but not least, NVIDIA is reportedly now requiring all of its board partners to offer at least one MSRP model. It will be interesting to see if, or how NVIDIA will enforce this and if so, if it can continue to influence graphics card manufacturers to offer them after their initial launch. Board partners have previously lamented that NVIDIA’s MSRP is more like charity resulting in a very low gross profit. It’s been suggested that NVIDIA could leverage this requirement by limiting GPU supplies to partners who do not choose to conform to the requirement.
Per VideoCardz:
“The embargo documents we have confirm that NVIDIA is enforcing a rule that all AICs (Add-inChannel partners) need to have at least one model at MSRP which will be available on the launch date (on-shelf).”
Pricing for the RTX 5060 series, MSRP or otherwise, has yet to be revealed. NVIDIA is facing significant competition in the low-to-mid GPU gaming segment this time around with AMD’s 9070 featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 offered at $549 and then Intel’s Arc B580 featuring 12 GB GDDR6 at $249 or Arc B570 with 10 GB GDDR6 at $219, we have a review of the $229 ASRock Intel Arc B570 Challenger here. While NVIDIA continues to add hardware-based features to its RTX lineup, and all three RTX 5060 series models should perform at varying levels at 1440p, pricing and memory configurations could play a significant factor in which graphics cards gravitate towards this time around.