CES 2026 proved the PC trade is hosed this 12 months

Dell’s XPS 14 currently costs over $2,000. An AMD government predicts that PC builders will probably make piecemeal upgrades this 12 months, as a substitute of constructing fully new methods. And new AI supercomputers from NVIDIA and AMD are gobbling up the RAM market. At CES 2026, it was laborious to not discover the dire 12 months forward for the computing trade, one that can probably result in larger costs and extra restricted availability for client items throughout the board.

Actually, although, the present simply confirmed what was obvious since RAM prices skyrocketed over the last few months, pushed by demand from AI datacenters. As Samsung’s advertising chief, Wonjin Lee, told Bloomberg at CES: “There’s going to be points round semiconductor provides, and it should have an effect on everybody. Costs are going up whilst we communicate.”

At first, it appeared that Dell’s new XPS 14 and XPS 16 have been among the many earliest methods hit by these calls for. Final 12 months’s fashions began at $1,699 and $1,899, respectively, and we have been initially informed the brand new fashions would truly are available cheaper at $1,650 and $1,850. In the intervening time, the XPS 14 begins at $2,050, whereas the XPS 16 is $2,200. A Dell consultant tells us these aren’t entry-level configurations, as a substitute we will count on to see cheaper methods under $2,000 in February. Whereas these costs haven’t been finalized, the reps say it ought to be just like the sooner figures we got.

It’s additionally price noting that it did not take a lot to configure the sooner fashions upwards of $2,000. It’s simply unlucky that Dell doesn’t have cheaper configurations obtainable for the launch if its new methods, particularly since they give the impression of being so compelling. In the meantime, Apple nonetheless hasn’t budged its $1,599 MacBook Professional 14-inch pricing. Not less than Dell nonetheless is available in cheaper than the $2,499 MacBook Professional 16-inch.

On the desktop entrance, AMD’s David McAfee, Company Vice President and GM of Consumer Channel Enterprise, famous that the longevity of the corporate’s AM4 and AM5 platforms is perhaps a boon for players, since they will improve their CPUs with out shopping for new RAM kits and motherboards. That permits for a pathway to raised efficiency with out paying out the nostril for over-priced RAM.

“I believe that can be probably a development that we see in 2026 with extra element upgrades, versus full system swap outs and, and altogether rebuilds,” he stated in a bunch interview with Engadget and different retailers. “A number of the hottest CPUs which are nonetheless operating in players’ platforms are components just like the 2600 again to the Pinnacle Ridge days, or 3000 sequence… Stepping even from there into a little bit bit extra fashionable 5,000 sequence processors in an AM4 socket and motherboard, there’s a fairly large increase there.”

McAfee added that round 30 to 40 % of AMD’s enterprise nonetheless revolves across the AM4 platform, even with out the specter of a wild reminiscence market.

“There is no product that has reminiscence in it that is resistant to a few of these forces round DRAM pricing and, and what it is doing to the market,” he stated, when requested about potential GPU value will increase. “I believe the, the reality is the volatility that we have seen over the previous two months or so has actually been unprecedented.”

Trying forward, he stated he expects costs to settle throughout the first three to 6 months of the 12 months, however he did not talk about his reasoning additional. As an apart, he additionally famous that AMD’s X3D chips, which characteristic 3D V-cache, truly do not see a lot of a success from slower RAM. Their excessive quantities of onboard L2 and L3 cache make up for much less very best reminiscence switch speeds, McAfee stated.

That McAfee commented in any respect in regards to the state of RAM is noteworthy. Each PC maker I’ve requested, together with Dell and Acer, refused to touch upon the risky state of the reminiscence trade forward of CES. Maybe they have been hoping issues would relax earlier than they needed to value their new methods. In the end, they’re beholden to an more and more restricted provide of RAM.

And the place is all that reminiscence going? At CES, NVIDIA introduced its new Vera Rubin AI supercomputer, which helps as much as 54TB of RAM throughout 36 Vera CPUs and 20.7TB of reminiscence throughout 72 GPUs. AMD, as nicely, introduced its new Helios AI rack, which helps as much as 31TB of reminiscence throughout 72 AMD Intuition MI455X GPUs. Given the infinite urge for food for computing to energy AI mannequin constructing and inferencing, there’s probably going to be a major demand for these beastly methods.

Put merely: Our international provide of reminiscence is being sacrificed to appease the AI trade. That’s excellent news for the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and NVIDIA, however unhealthy information for anybody who cares about PCs and the buyer merchandise we use each day. Prepare for a 12 months of value hikes.

Replace 1/12, 3:00p: Added a point out of decrease entry-level configurations coming ultimately.