Rumor mill: With demand for graphics cards through the roof and the worldwide chip shortage showing no signs of ending, AIB partners are selling Nvidia/AMD products at prices much higher than their MSRP. Asus has already raised pricing across its GPU and motherboard line-up. Now, the company looks set to do it again.

Back in January, Asus blamed the increasing costs of components, operations, and logistical activities, along with the "continuation of import tariffs," for its actions. The firm said it had done all it could to "minimize price increases" through discussions with its supply and logistic partners, but the cards still became more expensive. MSI did the same thing in March when it raised the prices of its products.

According to a report by Tom's Hardware, Asus is considering hiking its card prices for a second time. The rising cost of sourcing components is being passed on to the consumer, while the unprecedented demand has also played a part in the decision. Expect to see its motherboards increase in price, too.

Asus recently revealed a mini version of the RTX 3060 perfect from small form-factor PCs, which will no doubt cost way more than the MSRP.

A great card that's set to become more expensive

The sad reality is that other card manufacturers will likely follow in Asus' footsteps and raise their hardware's price tags.

It does appear that we're moving in the right direction when it comes to addressing the global chip shortage problem, at least in the long-term: TSMC is spending $100 billion on more fabs and R&D, GlobalFoundries is doubling its expansion budget to $1.5 billion, and the Biden administration is getting involved. There's still the drought problem in Taiwan, though.

Demand is another issue. On rare occasions when cards become available, gamers often battle scalpers and miners in a race to buy. At least Nvidia has its CMP line to ease the latter issue. There are also rumors that it will create the world's fastest mining card---a speculated 210 MH/s---using the first-ever Ampere GPU: the A100 designed for AI, HPC workloads, and cloud computing.