(Credit: Josephh Maldonado/PCMag)
The price of AMD graphics cards is expected to increase by 10% or more next year.
Sources who spoke to Taiwanese publication UDN are the latest insiders to sound the alarm on skyrocketing memory prices, which is having a knock-on effect on GPUs.
The news comes after PowerColor representatives warned of impending price rises by the end of the year, VideoCardz notes. A post on the Chinese Board Channel forum also said AMD is warning about impending price increases, although it hasn't made any announcements.
"The continuous rise in memory prices has led to a sharp increase in graphics card costs," a translated version of the UDN post says. "Industry sources indicate that AMD, the second-largest graphics card manufacturer, has notified its partners of a second price increase across its entire product line. The increase is estimated to be at least 10%."
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado/PCMag)Memory prices have been rising dramatically in recent months. Although they barely changed between the start of the year and May, they really started shooting up over the summer, with prices for single DDR5 kits jumping over 100% between July and October. That's partly due to increased demand from AI data center infrastructure projects, but also because memory suppliers have shifted their focus toward producing more low-power DDR and HBM for those same AI programs, thereby reducing the supply of standard DDR and GDDR memory chips.
The news of price rises for AMD is of particular concern because it has really struggled to get GPU prices down to their recommended MSRPs. Although its RX 9060 and 9060 XT GPUs have been more affordable, the 9070 XT has only recently become available for around $600. A 10% price hike wouldn't make this GPU unaffordable, but if this is just the beginning, AMD's best GPUs may lose their value edge. Especially if Nvidia can leverage its higher volume shipments to keep its prices more competitive, though that's not Nvidia's usual strategy.
We'll still need to wait and see what AMD actually does before we can estimate next year's prices. However, upgrading before the end of the year may ultimately save you money.