AI Demand Surges DRAM Prices, Hits Budget GPUs

Soaring prices for computer memory are reshaping the PC hardware market, with major graphics card makers AMD and Nvidia considering cuts to their budget product lines amid surging demand from artificial intelligence applications.

The crisis centers on dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, which powers system memory in personal computers and video random-access memory, or VRAM, in graphics cards. Prices for these components have doubled in recent months, according to market trackers, driven by the explosive growth of AI data centers that require vast quantities of high-bandwidth memory variants like HBM. Manufacturers such as Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are redirecting production toward these higher-margin AI products, leaving consumer-grade DRAM in short supply. Reports indicate memory chip costs have risen by as much as 60 percent, with server-grade components now accounting for over 40 percent of total expenses in some builds.

This shift has hit the entry-level graphics card segment hardest. Low-end models, which rely heavily on VRAM for affordability, face eroding profitability as memory becomes the priciest component. Industry sources report that AMD and Nvidia are...