MSI will be raising the prices of its GPUs due to U.S. tariffs, putting it in line with other AIB companies like Asus, EVGA and Zotac, Tom’s Hardware has confirmed.
In a Tom’s Hardware CES livestream, MSI components specialist David Yee answered a question from GPU editor Jarred Walton (you can see this at 48:43 in the video embedded below).
“I can confirm that MSI will be raising the prices on its graphics cards due to the reimplementation, to the reactivation of tariffs,” Yee said. “It’s for that reason, you know, we’re still working on the prices.”
The pricing issues apply to some of the products that MSI announced at this CES, including its newest GPU, the Sea Hawk, which water cools an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 or RTX 3090 with a 240mm radiator.
“For Sea Hawk, we just announced it today, but like I mentioned, we’re still trying to figure out how to bring it in from our factory,” Yee told us. “We haven’t even decided how much we’re going to price it just because the cost of the shipping and the tax we have to pay just to have the border customs release it to us. So that’s something we don’t have finalized information. But we can say that there will be a price increase.”
Right now, you’re lucky to even find any of the best graphics cards in stock, whether it be one of the latest from either Nvidia or AMD. But when they have been available, they have been scooped up quickly, and sometimes sold again on platforms like eBay for a premium by scalpers.
Yee’s statement also suggests that logistics of getting the GPUs into the United States alone could cause stock shortages. So it sounds like getting a GPU won’t be any easier anytime soon.
For your best shot at finding a new GPU see our articles on where to buy an RTX 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080 or 3090 and where to buy a Radeon RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT.