AMD and NVIDIA address GPU tariff concerns, partners are moving production

Earlier this year GPU prices spiked due to massive demand from cryptocurrency miners and now a new price hike is coming up for US customers due to the 10 percent tariff issued on $200 billion of Chinese imports. Among a long list of other items, the latest trade tariff order from President Trump slaps a 10 percent tariff on video cards assembled in China. Cards made in other countries are not affected by the tariff, but at the moment, the vast majority of video cards are assembled in China.

In a comment to CNBC, Shrout Research's Ryan Shrout notes gamers will likely see increased prices on video cards. Video card makers will try to minimize the impact by moving production to other countries, but that will take time.

"PC gamers will likely see increased prices on graphics cards with the implementation of this tariff, an unfortunate side affect of the continued policies of the Trump administration," Shrout wrote in an email Monday. "This is unfortunate timing for NVIDIA as it was already under pressure for the prices of its new RTX product family, and it is unlikely that it or its partners will simply absorb the added costs of the tariff."

CNBC asked AMD and NVIDIA for a comment. AMD said it's working closely with customers and partners to mitigate potential impacts. The company doesn't expect the tariffs to have a material impact on its business:

"We are working closely with our customers and partners to mitigate potential impacts related to the tariffs on AMD-based products. From all that we know today, we do not expect the US tariffs to have a material impact on our business."

NVIDIA also wrote it doesn't expect much direct impact and notes that its partners are already moving production to Taiwan and Mexico:

"There's relatively little direct impact on us. We understand that most of our partners have moved or are moving their impacted assembly work to Taiwan and Mexico, which aren't affected by the tariffs."