r/AyyMD

You must have seen the news recently about GPUs getting more expensive because of the rising costs of the VRAM that they use, specifically GDDR6 (Radeon), GDDR6X, GDDR7 (Nvidia).

While the 6 got pricier, 6X and 7 shot up over 30%! And ofc, as always, Nvidia's partners won't just absorb the extra cost, they'll take advantage of it but not raising the price upto the extra cost of the VRAM that they are paying, but for the whole damn graphics card! No, the RTX 5070 Ti VRAM's price did not rise by $400. Even if their costs rise by $50, they'll use that as an excuse to charge many times more.

Those of you who bought earlier OR right after the news spread at relatively lower price, congrats on your timing 👍 Enjoy.

P.S. Don't be disheartened if your warranty-'protected' malfunctioning gpu is not replaced during these times but instead refunded for by the lower msrp price. Because, corporations do be like that, have already done so with SSDs.

'Normally', when a company, in any industry slips up with sudden price increases or other forms of "oopsies", we can see that their competitors take advantage of this to try to win hearts, but not AMD, when Nvidia slip up, AMD become even more competitive in beating them in slipping up!

I mean.... "AMD never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity" said some tech enthusiasts. I'm glad the reviewer community have heavily criticised their 4GB GPU move here in 2026.

Idk if I am wrong in thinking this, so please point out if I am, but the memory inflation affects not just RAMs and SSDs, but GPUs too as evidenced by the GDDR6X and GDDR7 memory price increases that have led Nvidia's 'partners' to raise their graphics cards' prices by over 10% somewhat consistently throughout the different models. I won't allege 30% since that is less common. And 10%+ or so plus for the GDDR6 Radeon.

It affects thumb drive prices as well. Prices of thumb sticks went up by around 90%; so the price is near double compared to before for 32GB to 256GB sticks. I check aliexpress sometimes.

And now motherboard makers are saying that motherboard small parts are more expensive, and so motherboards will see a price hike too. All of a sudden, capacitors are overpriced!? Makes me think of conspiracies that they are actually trying to play this greed-game more widely by 'fixing' the prices!

I know we all don't need a $20 thumb stick (previous $10) immediately and heck, some of us could even borrow a stick from a friend to install an OS and done, return it back. But can't build a PC without new RAMs, SSD, both of which are essential parts. Even if you want to go DDR4, it's still going to cost you almost double for those parts! Gen 3 SSDs? The same problem, double the price!

In my opinion, ethically, a corporation's responsibility should not disruptively be towards one type of a consumer, the B2B AI-server companies, while de-prioritising the others, single consumers. It should be towards all of us. No, money should not be blindly chased, in any sphere of life. The memory manufacturers over-prioritising their production for the AI-boom has led to us consumers facing the problem. B2C consumers (us) have also been a major market for sales just like server companies pre-AI boom, but the memory makers did not respect this ratio. Not over-prioritising the AI-Server companies would not have accelerated AI-investment at such a rapid pace, sure, but on the flip-positive side, that would have led to lesser lay-offs/unemployment rate around the world, and a lesser pace of market disruption that we see today and economies would better absorb that. The abyss of corporate greed....smh... they don't really know what level of profit % will really satisfy them.

The meme's not really making fun of the situation. Thought I lite-rant a little more just to clarify. The meme-faces are possibly of those individuals who are playing a direct part in keeping the prices high. As usual, I always say, if it's possible for you to maintain your existing PC parts and not need to upgrade immediately, then please don't upgrade. It is us consumers who together hold the higher power and can change the market trajectory. The memory makers need us for their Q1Q2Q3Q4 profits. 2 Quarters with drops in sales and it is they who will beg us to buy.