It appears that not only might graphics cards increase in price soon, but they could also partially disappear from the market. At least the more affordable models. According to Hankyung, AMD and Nvidia are considering the possibility of temporarily halting the production of low-cost 3D cards. Due to the rising cost of memory (including GDDR6/7), the margin on such cards is significantly reduced, making it difficult to raise prices in this segment.
In this case, it seems to involve GeForce RTX 5050/5060/5060 Ti and Radeon RX 9060/9060 XT graphics cards. Typically, in such cases, manufacturers limit supply volumes instead of completely stopping production, so if this happens, it would be unprecedented. Furthermore, the shortage of lower-tier cards will provoke increased demand for higher-tier ones. At least the gap between the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and RTX 5070 is not that large, and those who planned to buy the former might end up buying the latter. Increased demand could lead to even more price hikes.
The market has already been experiencing disruptions over the past few years due to various factors such as semiconductor shortages and increased demand from cryptocurrency mining. Meanwhile, AMD and Nvidia are reportedly exploring strategies to optimize their operations amid these challenges, potentially placing a greater emphasis on higher-margin products.
