Blackwell · Tom's Hardware
Memory price surge begins to cool as consumers hit affordability limit
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Memory prices will keep climbing through the third quarter of 2026, but the blistering increases of the past few quarters are set to cool as consumer buyers reach the ceiling of what they can afford, according to a detailed TrendForce report.
Key facts
- PC manufacturers accumulated substantial client SSD inventories during the first half of 2026, reducing their willingness to accept another round of price increases
- TrendForce notes that NVIDIA's RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell has yet to generate the expected wave of GDDR7 demand, while weaker notebook shipments have also softened demand for graphics memory
- On the server side, TrendForce expects demand to remain healthy through 2027 as improving CPU availability supports continued deployments of AI servers built around x86 processors and registered
- Demand for AI inference systems and hyperscale data centers remains strong enough to keep both DRAM and NAND supply constrained, while memory manufacturers continue shifting production capacity
Summary
According to the report, the cooldown is driven by consumer electronics manufacturers' unwillingness and inability to absorb higher memory costs after months of relentless price increases, rather than by improved supply. AI continues to be the market's driving force. As a result, the memory market is increasingly split between enterprise and consumer customers. Consumer markets appear to paint a different picture.