NVIDIA Ends “Open Price Program,” Pushing GPUs Way Past MSRPs

According to Roman “der8auer” Hartung and HardwareLuxx, NVIDIA has effectively ended its Open Price Program (OPP). This program was intended to help NVIDIA’s add-in card partners sell GPUs at NVIDIA-suggested MSRPs. The program reportedly ended a few days ago, which means the pricing of GPUs from NVIDIA’s AIC partners will now fluctuate beyond MSRP. NVIDIA supplies its GPU dies and GDDR7 memory as a DIY kit to AIC partners, who purchase these kits at predetermined prices. They then install the GPU and memory on their customized PCBs to create third-party GPU designs. However, due to the scarcity of memory, GDDR7 prices have been rising significantly, and NVIDIA is passing these cost increases onto its AIC partners.

As per to HardwareLuxx, the OPP program helped NVIDIA’s AICs maintain MSRPs for their custom GPUs. Participation in the OPP program allowed manufacturers to list their GPUs at MSRPs, making them more appealing to consumers due to their perceived value. However, with the end of the OPP program, prices are expected to rise significantly since NVIDIA will no longer “subsidize” these listings. This change is likely influenced by the strained supply chain in the memory segment, where manufacturers are running low on available memory, leading to increased lead times and higher costs. Fortunately, NVIDIA continues to provide GDDR7 memory with its GPUs, so AIC partners don’t need to source it independently.

There were initial rumors about NVIDIA discontinuing the…