GPU pricing sat still through most of August, and this week it stopped sitting still. Every RTX 50 card in our tracked set now carries a US retail median above its launch MSRP, and the 30-day trends behind those medians point the same way on samples deep enough to take seriously. The chart and quoted prices use US retail, tax-excluded observations unless a region is named.
The RTX 50 stack cleared MSRP, top to bottom
The RTX 5090 median is $4,400 across 17 samples ($3,749 to $4,999.99), up 17.4 percent over 30 days and roughly 2.2 times its $1,999 launch price. Nothing further down the stack got away either; the chart tracks the sufficiently continuous observed price runs:
Recorded US retail prices versus launch MSRP
- RTX 5090
- RTX 5080
- RTX 5070 Ti
- RTX 5070
- RTX 5060 Ti 8GB
- RX 9070 XT
- RX 9070
What this chart shows
Daily medians from stored Market Watch observations show the RTX 50 stack pulling away from launch pricing while the Radeon RX 9070 series stayed closer. Every dot is an observed daily median; lines stop where more than ten days passed without a qualifying observation.
The 8GB 5060 Ti carries the steepest 30-day gain in the whole tracked set, an impressive return on a card whose defining characteristic was not having enough memory. The 16GB version reads $574.99 on four samples with no trend history yet, so treat it as directional.
RDNA 4 moved much less. The RX 9070 XT is at $700 (15 samples, up 3.7 percent over 30 days), the RX 9070 at $629.99 (17 samples, up 8.3), and the RX 9060 XT 16GB at $448.99 (11 samples, up 9.6). Intel's Arc B580 sits at $309.99 across 11 samples, up 6.7 percent. Last-generation Radeons went the other direction: the RX 7900 XTX fell 18 percent to $929.99 and the RX 7800 XT 7.9 percent to $699, both on five samples.
The used lane is thin: an RTX 5090 reads $3,999.99 on two used listings, $400 under the new retail median, and a used RTX 4090 $2,289.43 on three. Two or three observations give a direction, not a price.
CPUs are still the lane trading below list
Nineteen of the 21 CPUs with a current US retail median sit under launch MSRP. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is $439 across 11 samples, down 5.4 percent over 30 days against a $479 MSRP; the Ryzen 9 9950X3D $569 on five samples, down 16.9 percent against $699; the Core Ultra 9 285K $514 on nine samples, down 7.4 percent against $589. Both exceptions are minor: the Ryzen 9 7950X3D reads $699.99 against a $699 MSRP, and the Ryzen 7 5700X3D shows a $438 median on three samples with a $209.99 low in the same window, which is a sampling artifact rather than a price.
Most of the CPU lane last refreshed on August 15 to 17, so these are six to eight day old reads, and three Ryzen entries are already back in the stale queue.
A 64GB DDR5 kit now costs more than an RTX 5070 Ti
The Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit has a $1,159.99 median across seven samples, which is more than the 5070 Ti's $1,021.50 and more than every GPU we track below the RTX 5080. The Crucial Pro Overclocking 64GB DDR5-6400 kit reads $799.99 on three samples, up 31.1 percent over 30 days, which is thin enough to watch rather than quote.
The 32GB kits cluster between $372 and $550: Corsair Vengeance 32GB at $499.99 (10 samples, up 4.2 percent), G.SKILL Flare X5 at $549.99 (five samples, up 30.4 percent over 30 days but down 4.7 over seven), Crucial Pro 32GB DDR5-6400 at $419.99 on five samples, and Crucial Pro Overclocking 32GB DDR5-6000 at $372 on four samples, last refreshed August 13. The Corsair Vengeance 96GB row still shows $648.99 from a single observation taken on July 19; at 46 days old it is a historical data point, not a current price, and it is top of the refresh queue.
Marketplace listings for the same kits run far above retail: $868.29 for the Flare X5 across three listings against a $549.99 retail median, $804.08 for the Crucial Pro Overclocking DDR5-6400 across two against $449.99. Listing medians built on two or three rows carry very little weight in either direction.
The German lane tracks the US, except the RTX 5070
Germany's RTX 5090 median is €4,865.50 VAT included across six samples, over a €3,360.50 to €4,882 range wide enough that the median describes the crowded top of the sample rather than the market. The RTX 5080 at €1,455 (10 samples, up 19.2 percent) and RTX 5070 Ti at €1,144 (seven samples, up 26.3) track the US direction. The RTX 5070 does not: €781 with a 30-day trend of minus 22.6 percent while the US read gained 33.6. UK medians, £3,320 for the 5090 and £1,075 for the 5080, both VAT included, rest on two samples each, and most UK lanes are 36 to 37 days stale.
What the data supports
CPUs are the only tracked category where waiting has produced lower prices, and the X3D parts are the clearest case. Nothing in the RTX 50 numbers points down, so a GPU purchase that has to happen should happen on merit rather than on a hoped-for correction; RDNA 4 and the Arc B580 rose least over 30 days and sit closest to their launch pricing. For memory, the 32GB kits all fall inside a $180 band and the listing lane is worse than retail everywhere it can be compared, so buy the capacity the build needs from retail.