AMD's CEO predicts 'higher memory and component costs' later this year so brace yourself for Radeon GPU price hikes

Date:
Wed, 06 May 2026 20:30:00 +0000

Description:
Following Lisa Su's revelation, a disgruntled Redditor predicted: 'The RAM economy will permanently change and data centers will be a nuisance for the rest of recorded time'.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter AMD has announced its Q1 results, with booming revenue driven by AI There's bad news for the gaming division, though, due to 'higher memory and component costs, ' AMD's CEO Lisa Su observed AMD's CFO has forecast 'gaming revenue to decline by more than 20%' in the second half of 2026 compared to the first half of the year AMD just revealed its latest financial results, with good news for investors in the form of a major surge in revenue, but bad news for consumers, with more RAM-related worries looming on the horizon.

Tom's Hardware reports that AMD's Q1 2026 fiscal results witnessed a new record for data center revenue, as the AI boom drove further growth, but CEO Lisa Su warned of PC component price spikes going forward. Su predicted that demand is going to wane with its client and gaming businesses essentially
the consumer side of AMD's hardware in the second half of 2026 due to
"higher memory and component costs". Article continues below You may like
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So, yes, that means AMD's chief executive believes that after next month, as we head into Q3, RAM and other components are only going to get pricier.

With gaming, the damage done by price hikes could be quite considerable, as AMD's Chief Financial Officer, Jean Hu, observed: "We expect second half [of 2026] demand in gaming to be impacted by higher component and memory cost. We now expect second half gaming revenue to decline by more than 20% compared to the first half." Analysis: Radeon price hikes or indeed pricier consoles? (Image credit: AMD) In other words, compared to the first half of the year
(of which less than two months now remain with time flying by, as ever), the second half of 2026 is going to be considerably more sluggish for AMD's
gaming revenue. The expectation isn't just a 20% drop, but a more than 20% fall, so that could be a quarter less money raked in, or maybe more, up towards 30%, even.

This would seem to indicate that AMD's Radeon graphics cards are going to be in shorter supply in Q3 and Q4, and that there may be further price hikes on RX 9000 models. Clearly, AMD is expecting things to slow down with these graphics cards as 2026 rolls on, but its gaming revenue isn't just about Radeon, of course Team Red also makes the semi-custom GPUs for the PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Sales of those consoles are softening naturally, mind you, given that they're in the later stages of their expected lifespan now, so we're reaching saturation levels for would-be buyers. What could also be factored in here is the price hikes for console hardware, causing further unwillingness to buy
or possibly, AMD is anticipating further PS5 or Xbox price rises later this year, compounding the misery.

That's just guesswork, but clearly the outlook isn't great for the second
half of 2026, and this is the latest in a quickfire round of pessimistic RAM crisis predictions, two of which have come from memory chipmakers themselves. Micron has warned of growing AI demand and more pressure on RAM supply, while Samsung has observed that 'significant shortages' of memory will continue to plague us through 2027 as a best-case scenario.

There isn't much faith out there in Reddit-land that RAM pricing will recover anytime soon, or indeed that prices will ever reach the levels we saw last year, before the memory hikes started coming thick and fast.

As one Redditor put it in reaction to this news from AMD: "My prediction is that over 2027 prices will drop from an insane 400% [price increase] to a
nice and summerly 200%. But they'll never fall lower than that ever again.
The RAM economy will permanently change and data centers will be a nuisance for the rest of recorded time." The best laptops for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/computing-components/amds-ceo-predicts-hig her-memory-and-component-costs-later-this-year-so-brace-yourself-for-radeon-gp u-price-hikes


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