Asus graphics cards is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary and after having produced and innovated within the GPU space for the past three decades, the tech giant is releasing a ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 5090 ASUS Graphics Cards 30th Anniversary Edition to mark the occasion.
At Gamescom 2025, in line with the 30th anniversary celebrations, I sat down with Kent Chien the Corporate Vice President & General Manager of Asus Multimedia Business Unit. With 30 years of experience in the GPU industry, Kent has been in charge of the company’s graphics card related business since 2007, practically the very beginning of the story.
Graphics cards have been a particularly hot topic since the release of the Nvidia RTX 50 series cards earlier this year, but a major issue customers are struggling with are prices. The cost of graphics cards have increased exponentially since Asus first kicked off 30 years ago so I asked Chien if he has any insight as to why this has been the case, especially considering he’s been in the industry since it all kicked off.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Upon first sitting down with Chien, I wanted some insight as to what’s allowed both him and Asus to survive in the GPU race for as long as it has. In a highly competitive graphics card rat race, innovation has been difficult, so Chien shed some light onto how Asus has managed to outlast other competitors after three decades.
Chien began to tell his story, “From the very beginning, when I was younger, graphics cards were VGA and cost $30. The market at the time was getting smaller and smaller because Intel was trying to integrate all the display power inside its South Bridge. Everyone thought the market would disappear but our president thought that 3D computing would get more popular and become a very demanding industry.”
“He set up this team, and then unfortunately… I joined this team. At the time, I didn’t know anything, I just tried to learn and then I find out there’s always new stuff, every day there are new techniques, new terms. First physics, then light tracing and then many, many, many, many new terms. Fortunately we have all of this Genius, it’s good for us and good for this industry.”
Despite discrediting his own expertise, it was clear that Chien had faith in his team and the people around him at Asus, allowing the company to expand and grow into the tech giant it is today. While having this level of innovation is great, it can be extremely off-putting to consumers, especially when its reflected in the price tag.
After referencing the $30 price tag you could find on VGA graphics cards back at the start of Asus’ longlasting GPU career, Chien explained why the price has changed so much between then and the most recent line of products – with some of the latest GPUs coming in at just under $3,000 – almost 100 times the price.
“The demands of computing power is several hundred thousand times larger than before. Before it was 2D and the resolution was maybe 800×600 at most, right?” he explained.
“But now it’s so different, its 3D, there are multiple colours, its moving, its changing. It needs more computing power to create that and there are more effects. The power needed has increased by maybe a million times but the price has multiplied by just 30.” he stated as an example.
Components in graphics cards have and continue to become increasingly more powerful to keep up with demand. Whether its the release of Unreal Engine 5, or players trying to achieve hundreds of frames to match their 480Hz refresh rate screens, the demand on GPUs has intensified.
Chien provided an example to clarify his point stating “You can consider memory size. When I joined Asus, the memory size of graphics cards were maybe just 32MB and right now its more than 12GB, 16GB. We’ve gone from megabytes to gigabytes.”
While this makes perfect sense, I wanted some insight as to what it is that actually pushes the price up as this technology becomes more accessible. Chien stated it was “both” the technology inside and the research and development.
However, more so than the actual technology, Chien provided more insight as to what it is that’s driving prices GPU up. “The picture quality is getting more realistic and more beautiful and in turn people get excited.” he claimed.
“So people are willing to pay more because they’re excited. Every time there is a big step forward in turns of improvement people will pay just a little bit more. For 30 years, it has increased bit by bit until it’s gotten to where it is now.” He explained, claiming that prices have increased because of the market’s willingness to spend big for the latest improvement in graphics.
However, he went onto to defend himself and Asus “I don’t know, I think the prices are crazy.” he said, with clear discontent on his face. “For example, if I price them at $100, by the time it gets to the end user its gone up to maybe $200 or $300.” explaining how much other factors impact the cost of graphics cards.
“We cannot control the price, it’s very very tough for us.” he concluded, making it clear that despite being unhappy with the current pricing structure of graphics cards, there’s little he and Asus are able to do.
Overall, GPU prices have increased pretty exponentially in the past 30 years but Kent Chien has made it clear that many elements go into the pricing structure and third-party manufactures have little say over the cost. Despite Chien clearly being unhappy with how prices have increased, he claimed that Asus have little input on how much customers are paying for their new graphics cards.
