TECH NEWS – The RAM squeeze is quietly pushing midrange phones into luxury territory with an invisible user tax, and if shortages plus AI keep squeezing supply, consumers will be the ones footing the bill.
January has barely wrapped, and – unexpectedly – we already have one of the year’s most telling labels: “mid-range hardware”. This kind of buying behavior isn’t new, but runaway price hikes have nudged many people into skipping upgrades to higher-performance devices. That’s how rising RAM costs have set off a knock-on effect that, as usual, ends up landing on graphics cards too.
For weeks, a pricing crunch has been rippling across key components, but the pressure is intensifying: if RAM and VRAM stay scarce, graphics card makers will be forced to raise prices. Take Nvidia, for instance – it has started trimming incentives that help brands stick to MSRP, while also hiking the prices of the units it sells.
Put simply, the most practical way to frame it is this: if nobody “subsidizes” the recommended price, retailers stop pretending they’re committed, and prices climb with zero consequences. In that scenario, a card that sat at 400 euros for months can jump to 600 or 700 euros overnight, because shortages choke supply and demand does the rest.
As if that weren’t enough, there’s also chatter about production cuts and the prioritization of artificial intelligence, two forces that further tighten the stock available to gamers. Right now, most components are being funneled into servers, data centers, and other AI-driven gear, which is why the broader market is feeling the squeeze.
The impact gets even starker when you compare a gaming PC’s price to a PlayStation 5: if performance (relatively speaking) is similar, why pay the equivalent of two PS5 consoles for a single graphics card? That’s why the 2026 survival advice shifts: prioritize real-world performance, not the product label itself. With that mindset, you’re less likely to waste money or get caught by inflated pricing.
Forrás: 3djuegos
