It seems the PC gaming community is headed to an alarming period of shortage across different hardware which may even last for ‘several years’, according to multiple industry experts. Currently, there is an enormous increase in RAM prices which could impact various other parts of gaming as well including SSDs, Graphics Cards and more. In fact, PC retailer CyberPowerPC has already announced a price hike for memory modules all over the U.S and the U.K which could be a sign of things to come.
“Recently, global memory (RAM) prices have surged by 500% and SSD prices have risen by 100%,” CyberPowerPC stated. “This has had a direct impact on the cost of building gaming PCs since 10/1/25.” Price rises thus kick in on December 7.
Due to the recent, skyrocketing application and growth of generative AI and other related technologies, AI data centers are currently buying in bulk and hoarding memory and storage chips and thereby giving rise to steep increases in prices for all of those components in general.
In fact, this could potentially have a long lasting impact on PC gaming in more ways than one, as Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney tweeted recently: “RAM price increases will be a real problem for high-end gaming for several years,” he wrote. “Factories are diverting leading edge DRAM capacity to meet AI needs where data centers are bidding far higher than consumer device makers.”
As outlets like CyberPowerPC has outlined earlier, exponential rise in prices for different PC components may hit starting as early as this holiday season which is just right around the corner. And to make matters even worse, the entire situation could remain that way for several years to come which means potentially darker days may be ahead for PC gaming as a whole.
“The AI build-out is absolutely eating up a lot of the available chip supply, and 2026 looks to be far bigger than this year in terms of overall demand,” according to Dan Nystedt, vice president of research at TriOrient, in an interview with CNBC.
“It could be very bad for PCs, laptops, consumer electronics and automotive, which depend on cheap memory chips,” he continued.
AI servers mainly run on processors from chip designers like Nvidia and those in turn require High-Bandwidth Memory and as the AI companies are buying off those chips from the worldwide market on large quantities, it inevitably results in a shortage in all other areas and directly impacts PC gaming at large.
So what this really means for the average consumer is that if you want to upgrade your computer or several parts of it, it would be much better to do so right now and as soon as you can rather than waiting which, according to many industry experts, wouldn’t be a good idea at all.
