PC games hardware prices to go up even as market shrinks due to RAM costs

A tech analyst has predicted the PC market will see a ‘mid to high single digit decrease’ in 2026, amid rising RAM prices.

If you’ve been paying attention to technology news over recent months, you have probably heard the growing concern around memory shortages for new PCs and smartphones.

The price of RAM has increased as the world’s biggest memory makers – Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix – allocate more resources to AI companies, who are buying up lots of memory for huge data centres. This has led to shortages for everyone, with RAM now an expensive commodity.

A report by the International Data Corporation (IDC) has suggested this shortage will persist into 2027, as a respected tech analyst has laid out how it will affect the home PC market in 2026.

In an interview with PCWorld’s The Full Nerd podcast, tech industry analyst Dr Ian Cutress, who runs his own YouTube channel TechTechPotato, claimed the PC market would see a ‘mid to high single digit decrease’ this year based on his sources.

‘For reference, the PC market is around, depending on who you ask, 270 million units a year,’ Cutress said. ‘That’s notebooks, PCs, commercial, the whole ecosystem… but who I’m speaking to, we’re expecting to see mid to high single digit decrease in that number this year because of the shortages, because of the price increases.’

Cutress goes onto encourage PC gamers to ‘go back to your Steam catalogue and play some old games’, suggesting advancements in PC hardware will slow down.

According to the IDC, the global PC market grew by 8.1% in 2025, with 284.7 million units shipped in total (across desktops, notebooks, and workstations, but not tablets or x86 servers).

Jean Philippe Bouchard, research vice-president at the IDC, said the PC market ‘will be far different in 12 months given how quickly the memory situation is evolving’.

‘Beyond the obvious pressure on prices of systems, already announced by certain manufacturers, we might also see PC memory specifications be lowered on average to preserve memory inventory on hand,’ Bouchard said. ‘The year ahead is shaping up to be extremely volatile.’

‘Memory shortages are affecting the entire industry, and the impact will likely reshape market dynamics over the next two years,’ Jitesh Ubrani, IDC research manager, added.

‘Large consumer electronics brands are well positioned to leverage their scale and memory allocations to capture shares from smaller and regional vendors. However, the severity of the shortage raises the risk that smaller brands may not survive, and consumers, particularly DIY enthusiasts, may delay purchases or shift their spending to other devices or experiences.’

The IDC projects that, while total unit shipments ‘may soften’ in 2026, overall market value will ‘increase as component suppliers, PC manufacturers, and channel partners adjust pricing to ensure they capture revenue opportunities’.

In other words, they’re going to charge more to make sure they make the same amount of profit.

As for what this means for gamers specifically, anyone hoping to invest in a new graphics card will likely have a difficult time doing so over the next year – unless you’re willing to pay large sums.

We’ve already seen this impact Black Friday sales and stores in Japan and some high-end cards are already becoming rare or have been officially discontinued.

On the console front, there have been reports these shortages could delay the rollout of the PlayStation 6 and next Xbox beyond 2027, although neither Sony or Microsoft has commented on that possibility yet.

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