Direction AMD, whose graphics card price hikes are becoming more and more apparent. As you know, due to strong demand from the AI market, memory manufacturers are redirecting their production towards HBM memory, which is particularly in demand in this sector. As a result, production of GDDR, DDR5 and even NAND Flash is declining, creating a supply deficit and driving up prices. As a result, DDR5 kits are being offered at extremely high prices, while price increases are to be expected on the graphics card side.
Between $20 and $40 in the first instance…
Initially, between now and the end of the year, price hikes have been announced at $20 for cards with 8 GB of memory, compared with $40 for models with 16 GB of VRAM. These price hikes add to the price of cards that were finally starting to become affordable… Well, finally starting to be available at their recommended retail price. Unfortunately, the joy was short-lived.
On the Board Channels forum, interesting things are being said, as this increase will not be the only one. No, there’s already talk of a phase 2 price hike for 2026, with prices of ~$40 (300 yuan) for 8 GB cards and ~$85 (600 yuan) for 16 GB models. Cumulatively, these increases amount to $60 for the smaller cards, compared with $125 for the more memory-intensive models.
Worse still, this tension also seems to be putting pressure on manufacturers AMD, Intel and NVIDIA, as no new GPU launches seem scheduled for 2026. Obviously, we can’t expect to see the RTX 50 Super next year, and the same goes for AMD.
Finally, the first phase of price increases is expected between this month and early next year. As for the second phase, we don’t yet know when its effects will be felt.
