Memory-driven price climb
Component prices are climbing hard again in August 2026, and the common thread is memory. Nvidia’s RTX 5090 now carries a median U.S. street price near $4,700, up from roughly $4,300 just two months ago, with some AIB and South Korean retail listings pushing past $5,000. Mainstream cards aren’t spared either — the 12GB RTX 5070 and 16GB RTX 5060 Ti have both drifted into prices that are hard to justify against their specs.
The increases aren’t limited to Nvidia’s own pricing. Late-July hikes out of China rippled outward, and by early August, ASUS and Gigabyte had confirmed further price increases to their distribution partners, with MSI following to acknowledge graphics card increases north of 20 percent.
RAM and storage are being squeezed by the same root cause. Analysts at IDC estimate AI data centers could absorb around 70 percent of the world’s memory output in 2026, up from roughly 20 to 30 percent just a few years ago. NAND flash pricing has followed a similar curve, with a 2TB NVMe drive that cost $120 to $150 a year ago now commonly listed between $300 and $480 depending on the model.
Compounding the squeeze, reporting from The Information indicates Nvidia has shelved its planned RTX 50 Super refresh and is pushing next-generation RTX 60-series gaming cards to 2028, ending a three-decade streak of annual GeForce gaming launches. For anyone building or upgrading a PC this year, that means there’s no near-term new-generation reset to wait out — current-gen pricing is likely the reality for a while yet.
