Sapphire rep calls for calm, says DRAM crisis will begin to stabilize in 6 months

Sitting down with Hardware Unboxed in a new long-form video interview, Sapphire's PR Manager, Edward Crisler, talked about a wide range of topics related to graphics cards. Sapphire, after all, is one of AMD's key AIB partners for Radeon GPUs, and one of the key components of a modern graphics card is VRAM. And amid the current memory and DRAM crisis, we've already heard that GPU prices for Radeon cards are set to increase further throughout 2026.

With several industry insiders and analysts predicting that the DRAM crisis will last until 2028 and that the situation for consumer-facing tech like PCs, laptops, smartphones, and other gear like GPUs is pretty dire, Sapphire's Edward Crisler has a different take. A more optimistic one than we've been hearing of late.

First, he acknowledges that there's a "lot of uncertainty taking place in the market" right now, and that current shortages are affecting DDR5 memory kit pricing and leading to panic buying for all PC gaming hardware - GPUs included. Edward Crisler adds that this "uncertainty" will "hurt gamers for six months." After that? Well, he believes that within the next six to eight months "the market will start to stabilize."

• Read more: AMD responds to concerns that there will be a Radeon GPU shortage in 2026

It's a position that makes sense. Uncertainty about the current state and future availability of a product (in this case, memory) naturally leads to panic, which has been exacerbated by reports from insiders and even the biggest DRAM manufacturers that these shortages are set to continue for the foreseeable future.

"We've got to stop the panic," Edward Crisler says.

Edward Crisler adds that when it comes to PC gaming, we're now in a three to four-year upgrade cycle for hardware and components, so if you've got a gaming PC that's a couple of years old, then there's no need to panic or even upgrade. "Don't buy because you have to buy. Put your money away. Relax. Play some games."

In other words, wait it out. Edward goes on to state that once the market stabilizes and returns to a more normal state, this process in and of itself will take time. It's worth noting here that Edward Crisler is only talking about GPUs, specifically Radeon graphics cards built for PC gaming, which utilize GDDR6 memory. However, given all the recent reporting on memory availability, pricing, and AI buying up all of the 2026 capacity, it remains to be seen whether the six-month timeline is optimistic.