MSI has quietly raised the price of all of its RTX 5070 Ti models, continuing a trend we've seen with RTX 50-series GPUs that's effectively done away with list price. As spotted by French outlet Hardware&Co, MSI raised the official price of its most inexpensive RTX 5070 Ti models -- some of which are among the best RTX 5070 Ti models you can buy -- bringing the cheapest model up to $820 from its original price of $750.

GPU availability has been a disaster

It's been a disaster trying to find any of Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs at list price, but the RTX 5070 Ti is unique. The card wasn't received well in reviews, and it was victim to an ongoing issue this generation where some Nvidia cards are missing Raster Operations Pipelines (ROPs). The lack of a Founder's Edition model hasn't helped the situation, excluding the RTX 5070 Ti from Nvidia's Verified Priority Access program.

MSI raising the list price of its RTX 5070 Ti models signals that we may never see the card available for MSRP. Currently, MSI is the only brand that has officially raised prices on the card. At Asus, you can still find an RTX 5070 Ti listed at MSRP, though like most RTX 50-series GPUs, it's sold out.

Although MSI is the only brand that's officially raised the MSRP, others will likely follow. Both MSI and Asus have done away with the list prices of $1,000 and $2,000 for the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, respectively. Now, you'll spend at least $1,140 for an RTX 5080 and $2,400 for an RTX 5090, and those are the most inexpensive versions that MSI and Asus have to offer.

Other board partners, such as Gigabyte, don't publicly display list prices, so it's difficult to gauge if there's a larger trend toward higher MSRPs. As is usually the case with GPUs, the market ultimately dictates the price. High demand and short supply leads to higher prices, which is exactly what we've seen with RTX 50-series GPUs. The full range is sold out at most retailers, especially online, leading to higher prices.

Nvidia is about to face stiff competition from AMD

MSI's price hike comes at a terrible time for Nvidia. AMD is set to release its RX 9070 XT in just a few days, which is said to perform about as well as an RTX 5070 Ti for $150 less. There's a good chance AMD's cards will sell out quickly, as we've seen with Nvidia's launches up to this point. But the MSRP situation with the RTX 5070 Ti only serves to make AMD's upcoming midrange GPU more attractive.

Although it's a worrying sign to see MSI raise prices on the RTX 5070 Ti, we'll have to wait for the GPU market to settle down to see where prices land. As it stands now, all current-gen GPUs are too expensive given the performance they offer. Hopefully prices will come down once the stock replenishes.