Problems meeting demand for DRAM will impact all consumer products. It will also be felt strongly by gamers, because according to rumors, NVIDIA is announcing a cut in production, which will probably result in an increase in prices.
What has been happening on the DRAM memory market in recent months cannot be optimistic. Due to huge investments in artificial intelligence computing clusters, there is a shortage of DRAM memory on the market. However, producers do not intend to invest in increasing production capacity and are taking advantage of this situation by dictating prohibitive prices. This will particularly affect the consumer products segment.
The end of cheap graphics cards
DRAM memories are used in a huge number of different devices, from computers to smartphones to TVs. The more memory a device needs, the more expensive it will be next year. And it probably won’t affect the prices of TVs, but in the case of smartphones it may be different. It is said that devices with 4 GB of RAM will return to the market, and those with 12 or 16 GB will probably be much more expensive. Graphics cards also use similar amounts of memory and their prices will probably go up soon. NVIDIA is apparently still defending itself against this, but even such a giant is unable to resist market mechanisms.
According to Chinese media reports, NVIDIA may reduce the production of graphics cards by up to 30-40% in the first half of next year compared to the same period this year. The victims of the cuts will mainly be models equipped with large amounts of memory, such as GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB. So if you are planning to buy a graphics card, now may be the last whistle to do it at an acceptable price. Rumors say that AMD is also going to raise prices because of DRAM memory. Moreover, it is speculated that NVIDIA may abandon the premiere of GeForce RTX 50 SUPER cards next year, which usually appeared in the middle of the life of a given generation. However, much will depend on how the situation develops next year.
It’s hard to be optimistic at this point. Huge investments in computing centers, where DRAM is also used en masse, will only intensify rather than retreat. However, much will depend on whether companies such as OpenAI or Google maintain interest in their products and find a way to make money from it. For now, the expansion of computing capacity for AI is being done on credit, without a clear path to profits. If this situation continues for a longer period of time, investors may finally lose patience and cut off financing. This would result in an avalanche that would probably clear up the market somewhat, but whether it will happen next year is still a huge mystery.
