Edward Crisler, PR manager for Sapphire, sat down with Hardware Unboxed to discuss a myriad of relevant topics, most timely of which were his opinions on the cascading RAM shortage. Despite being a representative for a GPU maker during these rather opportune times, Edward offers a very community-centric, hopeful answer to the current situation.
How The DRAM Crisis Will Affect Gaming GPUs (feat. Ed from Sapphire) - YouTube Watch On
Just as we've already seen with DDR5 kits, without the production capacity to manufacture VRAM at pace, graphics cards will eventually receive a price hike, too. Notably, AMD recently raised prices for its 9000 series cards. Crisler, though, believes panic buying is not the solution here, going as far as to say that the situation will stabilize next year, contradicting pretty much every industry prediction so far.
"I truly believe that within 6-8 months, we're going to see the market begin to stabilize. Now, it may not be the prices we want. But I think some of the uncertainty is going to begin to disappear, and we're going to see a stabilization. So, I tell people don't become Chicken Little with this."
Before those optimistic words, Crisler shared how the DRAM crisis is similar to the tariff situation that plagued much of this year. According to him, it wasn't the tariffs themselves that were the issue, rather the volatility and, as a result, the unpredictability that was the real poison.
With memory, prices began to skyrocket due to AI demand, harboring mass hysteria among prospective buyers. That, in turn, increased current demand, which always bumps prices — RAM shortage or not — and the dominoes keep falling, to the point where we are at 4x the markup right now.
Image 1 of 1 (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Circling back to the earlier prediction, it's important to note how this so-called stability will actually materialize. We've already seen empty shelves sustained during the pandemic and crypto booms for GPUs, making it implausible to buy a new graphics card. So, if memory prices do settle, they'll still be significantly higher than before.
That being said, throughout the video, Crisler commended PC gamers as a whole for being resilient, having weathered several shortages and emerging victorious on the other end. He advises the community to: "Put your money away. Relax. Play some games. Enjoy the system you've got right now." PC gaming is not going anywhere, and even this crisis will eventually sort itself out.
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