Nvidia allegedly only achieved graphics card RRPs through subsidies
Nvidia allegedly scrapped a discount program for graphics card manufacturers. The RTX 5080, in particular, could now become much more expensive.
RTX 5000 Graphics Cards
(Image: c’t)
For years, graphics card manufacturers have allegedly only achieved Nvidia's suggested retail prices through a kind of discount program from the chip manufacturer. This is reported by the well-connected hardware developer and YouTuber Roman "der8auer" Hartung in a recent video. Two unnamed sources are said to have confirmed to him the existence of a program called "OPP" – however, Nvidia allegedly discontinued this program a few days ago without replacement.
The video does not reveal what the abbreviation stands for or how exactly OPP is said to have worked. Other media spell OPP as "Open Price Program," but there is no confirmation of this yet. Hartung explicitly states in his video that the recommended retail prices (RRP), which are particularly important at market launch, could only be achieved for card manufacturers through OPP. He emphasizes clearly: GPUs and graphics memory, which Nvidia typically sells as a bundle to card manufacturers, were allegedly so expensive that selling them at RRP would not have been possible without losses.
Why RRP is so important
Graphics cards are positioned in the market through manufacturers' price recommendations, known as MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) in the US market. Devices from different chip and card manufacturers at similar prices usually have comparable performance and other common characteristics. Nvidia also consistently highlights these suggested prices in its announcements of new GPUs. Legendary, for example, is the promise that the RTX 5070 delivers the same performance as the RTX 4090, which is at least three times more expensive, for an MSRP of $549. However, Nvidia compared frame rates with and without intermediate frame rendering.
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Due to the regulations that Nvidia imposes on journalists as a condition for receiving graphics cards for review, it is also known that the company distinguishes between two types of devices: RRP cards and non-RRP cards. The former can be tested on the launch date set by Nvidia, the latter only a day later.
Therefore, it is attractive for manufacturers like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and others to offer not only more expensive and better-equipped non-RRP graphics cards with a new GPU at market launch, but also the simpler RRP cards: Customers look at these immediately, and the usually scarce supply on the first day of sale is quickly depleted. Thus, a program like OPP is likely indispensable for manufacturers to secure market share.
A note in our own interest: c't and heise online reject Nvidia's strict conditions, with which the company wants to obligate journalists to violate journalistic principles through non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Therefore, we only receive the cards for our tests after market launch.
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RTX 5080 could become up to 50 percent more expensive
As Roman Hartung further reports, the RTX 5080 in particular is said to be strongly affected by the discontinuation of OPP. This graphics card currently costs around 1250 Euros, its RRP is 1119 Euros, and in autumn 2025 it was sometimes offered significantly cheaper. According to Hartung, increases of 40 or even 50 percent are to be expected here; the second-fastest RTX 5000 would then probably no longer be available for under 1500 Euros.
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The top model, the RTX 5090, is currently hard to find for under 3500 Euros, after the card in basic versions was available for a long time close to its RRP of 2229 Euros. This means the price difference to the perhaps soon more expensive RTX 5080 remains considerable. In general, prices for graphics cards are already increasing significantly.
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No more 5070 Ti soon?
The reports and denials surrounding CES regarding the RTX 5070 Ti now fit into the picture of rising prices. At the trade fair, it was said that this card would disappear from the market. Nvidia and card manufacturers contradicted this after some back and forth, but with the new developments, the question arises even more strongly. The 5070 Ti, like the 5080, is based on the GB203 GPU, which is somewhat cut down on the smaller card.
Chip manufacturers usually do this when the yield in manufacturing is not yet particularly high. After over a year of series production at TSMC, it might be more economically attractive for Nvidia to only offer the full version of the GB203 for the more expensive graphics card with correspondingly higher margins.
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Roman Hartung received no answer to his inquiries to Nvidia about the alleged OPP, even after days. It should be mentioned at this point that discount programs from chip manufacturers, including those from AMD and Intel, are quite common. The best known is probably the "Intel Inside" program, which was maintained for decades and which Intel significantly scaled back in 2017. In this program, notebook manufacturers, for example, received substantial discounts if they placed the Intel Inside logo on their devices and packaging, as well as subsidies for advertising.
(nie)
