… Those supply constraints are now beginning to filter through the broader gaming hardware market. The industry has already seen several rounds of hardware price increases tied to rising component costs. …
… This puts the mainstream PC market in a volatile state, as sometimes the DDR5 RAM kit alone can cost nearly as much as a high-end GPU. G.Skill explicitly blames the boom in the AI workloads for this surge and says that it has resulted in a drastic increase in procurement and sourcing costs. …
… Given the huge increase in SSD and RAM prices over the past six months as components have been bought up by AI firms, it wasn't a forgone conclusion that Valve would launch Steam Machine with a four-model lineup as planned. …
… Su said. The sobering news as it pertains to gaming is that AI is gobbling up so many memory and storage chips, which in turn is driving up costs. Dr. Su acknowledged that higher memory and component costs will impact second half demand in gaming. …
… Read all comments on Western Digital Has No More HDD Capacity Left, as CEO Reveals Massive AI Deals; Brace Yourself For Price Surges Ahead!
… "If the increase in costs were seen as something temporary that would subside relatively soon, then we could have pursued other options, such as working to improve productivity and expand the installed base while maintaining hardware prices," said Furukawa during an earnings Q&A . …
… MORE CONTEXT PCs and phones to get more boring and expensive in 2026 thanks to memory drought Memory scalpers hunt scarce DRAM with bot blitz Apple's budget-friendly MacBook Neo is bursting with color and compromise HP says memory's contribution to PC costs just doubled to 35 percent This was noted… …
Jasmine Mannan Apr 12, 2026, 2:31 PM EDT Jasmine is Software and PC Hardware Author at XDA with years of tech reporting experience ranging from AI chatbots right down to gaming hardware, she's covered just about everything. …
… As highlighted in Synopsys’ guide, the global AI chip market is projected to reach $383 billion by 2032, growing at a 38% CAGR. This surge is driven by AI models scaling to trillions of parameters, outpacing traditional monolithic chips. …
… Memory prices surged entering the year and are expected to keep rising, which pushed consumers and businesses to make purchases earlier than planned. Buyers moved to avoid higher retail costs so as to pull demand forward rather than expanding it. …
