THE CRUNCH
Nvidia's RTX 50-series graphics cards are selling at sharply higher prices in Japan than in the United States, according to a price list shared by a Redditor and analysed by Tom's Hardware. Comparing a Japanese retailer's listings with Amazon US prices at an exchange rate of 153.38 yen to the dollar, the gap ranges from 5.66% to 41.1%, with the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB showing the biggest increase at 41.1% pre-tax.
The comparison covers the RTX 5080, 5070 Ti, 5070 and 5060 Ti. On average, RTX 5080 listings were 12.71% dearer in Japan, the RTX 5070 Ti 20.51%, the RTX 5070 19.69% and the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB 25.19%. Individual cards vary widely: one MSI RTX 5080 was actually cheaper in Japan, while an Asus Prime RTX 5070 Ti cost 41.15% more.
The figures are pre-tax, so the real gap depends on where US buyers live. Adding a representative 8.5% sales tax narrows the difference to between 3.88% and 30.04%.
The pressure appears to come from supply. The memory chip shortage and heavy demand for AI compute have squeezed gaming GPU availability, with reports suggesting Nvidia may halt RTX 5090 production in favour of data centre and professional cards. High-end cards have largely vanished from online listings, with third-party sellers asking close to $10,000 for an RTX 5090. The shared price list shows no RTX 5090 at all, which Tom's Hardware suggests may mean Japanese retailers no longer stock it, pushing demand down to lower-tier cards.
Japan is typically more expensive than the US for GPUs, so some premium is normal. Even so, the size of these hikes on mainstream cards is unusual, and Tom's Hardware suggests such pricing trends have previously travelled westward, pointing to a similar pattern late last year.