Japanese retail chain Applied issued a warning to customers: the wave of independent graphics card price increases is not over yet. Following the Akihabara store, the Wakayama branch also called on users who plan to upgrade their computers to buy as soon as possible because the price list is about to be raised again.
In August 2026, Japanese dealers and retailers have revised price tags, increasing the cost of many categories of graphics cards by 20-30%, and for some brands such as Gigabyte, the increase has reached 40%. By early September, most of the old warehouse stocks at previous prices had been completely exhausted. Applied Materials’ warning concerns another coming wave of price indexation. The chain has yet to reveal exact dates and specific product lines, but the price increase will affect at least some of its current varieties.
The supply crisis and rising costs of video memory have hit models with large amounts of VRAM hardest. As a result, some versions of the GeForce RTX 5080 are selling for close to 300,000 yen (approximately $1,920) in Japanese stores.
