Huge Tech’s AI-fueled memory scarcity is set to be the PC market’s specifying story for 2026 and beyond. Standalone, direct-to-consumer RAM packages were a few of the very first items to feel the bite, with costs surging by 300 or 400 percent by the end of 2025; rates for SSDs had actually likewise increased visibly, albeit more decently.

The rest of 2026 is going to be everything about where, how, and to what level those cost spikes circulation downstream into computer systems, phones, and other parts that utilize RAM and NAND chips– locations where the existing supply of items and longer-term supply agreements worked out by huge business have actually assisted keep rates from rising too visibly up until now.

Today, we’re seeing indications that the RAM crunch is beginning to impact the GPU market– Asus made some waves when it accidentally revealed that it was stopping its GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

The business has actually because attempted to stroll this statement back, if you’re a GPU producer, there’s a strong argument for either ceasing this design or de-prioritizing it in favor of other GPUs. The 5070 Ti utilizes 16GB of GDDR7, plus a partly handicapped variation of Nvidia’s GB203 GPU silicon. This is the very same chip and the very same quantity of RAM utilized in the higher-end RTX 5080– the thinking goes, why continue to develop a graphics card with an MSRP of $749 when the very same standard parts could go to a card with a $999 MSRP rather?

Whether Asus or any other business is canceling production or not, you can see why GPU makers would be lured by the argument: Street costs for the RTX 5070 Ti designs begin in the $1,050 to $1,100 variety on Newegg today, where RTX 5080 cards begin in the $1,500 to $1,600 variety. 5080 designs might require more robust boards, heatsinks, and other elements than a 5070 Ti, if you’resimply attempting to optimize the profit-per-GPU you can get for the very same quantity of RAM, it makes good sense to move allowance to the more costly cards.