AMD plans frustrating GPU chip change

AMD plans to boost the terms of Radeon GPUs by 10% successful aboriginal 2026, according to sources privy to the matter, capping a monumental 2025, and it's not adjacent Christmas.

As analysts and investors heaped praise connected the semiconductor elephantine station Q3 2025 earnings, AMD CEO Lisa Su said:

“The request for compute has ne'er been greater,” according to Su, with AI request “insatiable” astatine the moment.

It's nary wonderment AMD isn't slowing down. Instead, according to rumors from Tom's Hardware, a terms hike is connected the cards successful a twelvemonth AMD surreptitiously paid much for parts to support prices low.

The company's archetypal enactment of defence was internal; however, DRAM and VRAM prices person been excessively precocious for excessively long, which has wounded profits. Soon, higher costs volition mean committee prices spell up, and gamers and PC builders volition wage other astatine the register.

Nvidia is besides facing the aforesaid proviso problems, but its concern is different. The information halfway elephantine is putting disconnected launching caller products for consumers alternatively of lowering prices successful a representation marketplace that is becoming tighter. Customers shouldn't expect Nvidia to little prices to get much marketplace stock portion representation makers absorption connected AI-class parts.

The information halfway is the astir important part. Hyperscalers are racing to bid bigger models, which is making it hard to get HBM and DDR5 RDIMMs. This is pushing wafer starts and back-end capableness toward the products that marque the astir money. As fabs alteration their accumulation to lucifer that demand, user representation is tight, and desktop GPUs consciousness the deed close away.

That tilt has caused DRAM costs to spell done the roof, and it has adjacent affected GDDR6, the representation that drives today's gaming PCs. Analysts present telephone the concern a "memory bull market" since manufacturers are putting AI accelerators up of different parts. For gamers, the prime astatine the apical means less sales, little stock, and prices that spell up with each caller shipment.

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By the extremity of 2025, DRAM declaration prices had gone up by 3 digits per year, and spot markets were going up arsenic proviso became tighter. Prices for GDDR6 roseate by astir 33% to 43% for each speeds and densities.

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The next-gen GDDR7 pipeline stayed choky capable to support unit connected current-gen parts. Retail shelves are down contracts, but they bash travel them. This implies that the prices clients wage successful 2026 volition beryllium based connected the existent costs of the measure of materials provided by partners.