Good news for GPU buyers: Asus says it’s slashing prices for its PC graphics cards in response to the US temporarily lifting Trump-era tariffs on certain Chinese imports.
“Gamers and PC enthusiasts will see lower prices on Asus GeForce RTX 30-series graphic cards starting on April 1st, 2022,” the company said in an email on Monday.
“Lower prices will affect entry level GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3060, midrange RTX 3070 and high performance RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards,” the vendor added. “Consumers should expect prices to decline up to 25% on different models throughout the springtime.”
The price cuts will also apply to AMD’s Radeon RX graphics cards, an Asus spokesperson said.
The news comes days after the Biden administration temporarily lifted the tariffs on graphics cards and motherboards imported from China. Before, vendors had been paying a 25% duty on the products, which led to companies including Asus, EVGA, and Zotac to raise prices.
The price cuts promise to address one of the key problems facing the GPU market. Over the past year, the cost of many desktop GPUs has become grossly inflated, forcing many PC builders to pay an extra $200 or more to own a desktop graphics card, assuming they can even find the desired product in stock.
Other factors behind the inflated pricing include the chip shortage and the massive demand from consumers and cryptocurrency miners. In recent weeks, we’ve noticed GPU supplies have improved significantly, making them much easier to obtain, although pricing remains high.
The announcement from Asus will hopefully kick off a wave of better pricing, since the company’s competitors may be forced to respond. We’ve reached out to MSI, Gigabyte, and EVGA for comment, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. The Biden administration is only offering the tariff exclusions until the end of this year, although it could grant an extension.
