Where video cards have had to deal with mining cost, memory and SSD products have had to deal with NAND supply and cost. Looks like video cards may soon join the party, as – according to DigiTimes and sources familiar with SK Hynix & Samsung supply – quotes in August increased 30.8% for manufacturers. That’s a jump from $6.50 in July to $8.50 in August.
It sounds as if this stems from a supply-side deficit, based on initial reporting, and that’d indicate that products with a higher count of memory modules should see a bigger price hike. From what we’ve read, mobile devices (like gaming notebooks) may be more immediately impacted, with discrete cards facing indeterminate impact at this time.
Production is being ordered now, so we won’t see much impact from this (if there’s any at all) until a little way out; besides, it’ll be difficult to determine how much of a price hike comes from memory supply versus other external forces, like mining demand.
NAND prices are expected to remain high through next year (by newest reports) and has clearly affected consumer pricing, but we’re not yet sure how relevant this GDDR price hike will be to video card consumers.
- Steve Burke