TECH NEWS – The high demand for artificial intelligence is also beginning to disrupt the video card market.

Nvidia sources its VRAM chips from memory manufacturing giants such as Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix. However, these companies obviously have to meet the increased demand for memory due to the AI boom. The shortage has affected memory availability so severely that Nvidia is likely no longer receiving sufficient memory from these companies. According to the well-known source Golden Pig Upgrade, Nvidia is no longer packaging VRAM chips with GPUs. Nvidia supplies its partner manufacturers with GPUs and VRAM chips, and the manufacturers take care of the rest. However, Jensen Huang’s company has apparently asked its partner manufacturers to procure VRAM chips themselves. This may not be a problem for large GPU manufacturers, but it could be a huge problem for many small manufacturers without good connections.

Note that the memory shortage affects not only standard system DRAM (DDR4 and DDR5) but also video memory (GDDR6 and GDDR7). These types of memory are used in the latest AMD Radeon RX 9000 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 series GPUs. While Nvidia has reportedly entrusted its manufacturing partners with the procurement of video memory, it is unclear whether AMD has any such plans. Bear in mind that this information is unofficial, but, given the leaker’s reputation, it may be true, especially since there have been reports of rising memory prices.

Memory availability may continue to deteriorate, as Maingear’s CEO recently warned. Samsung has begun mass producing 3 GB GDDR7 28 Gbps memory modules, but they will likely appear in the RTX 5000 Super series. The launch of this series has been postponed to the third quarter of 2026 due to the memory shortage.

What does all this mean? It means that the price of video cards will increase. For example, MSI will not absorb the price increase of GDDR6/7; instead, they will pass it on to consumers.

Source: WCCFTech, Weibo