AMD responds to concerns that there will be a Radeon GPU shortage in 2026

At CES 2026, we sat down with David McAfee, the Vice President and General Manager of Ryzen CPUs and Radeon graphics at AMD, to discuss a range of topics, including the current DRAM crisis affecting Radeon GPUs. Specifically, with rumors of price increases and potential models and SKUs being put on hold.

2

With DRAM prices making it increasingly unaffordable to buy PC components like memory, the same constraints also apply to the GPU market, since all graphics cards include VRAM. In the case of the flagship RDNA 4 GPU, the Radeon RX 9070 XT, it includes 16GB of GDDR6 memory as standard across all models.

• Read more: AMD will reportedly increase the price of 8GB Radeon GPUs by $20 and 16GB GPUs by $40
• Read more: AMD to raise its Radeon RX 9000 Series GPU prices by at least 10%
• Read more: Radeon RX 9000 Series price increases confirmed, second price increase coming January 2026

"There's been very thorough coverage surrounding the complexity and strains in the DRAM market," David McAfee explains. "As we look at it, we've got very long-term deep partnerships with all of the DRAM manufacturers to make sure that our needs are met in terms of DRAM supply for our [Radeon] GPUs, to make sure that we're building what gamers need."

And with that, the good news is that AMD doesn't foresee any shortages for its Radeon GPUs for PC gamers in 2026.

"From that point of view, I'm not concerned that current constraints will lead to a shortage of GPUs in the market," David McAfee tells us. "I think we've got long enough, deep enough, and strategic enough partnerships, and that's a critical problem that we're working with those partners day in and day out."

Of course, the other half of the current crisis is pricing: having availability is one thing, and selling a GPU at an affordable or competitive price point is another. The good news is that AMD is committed to maintaining Radeon's competitiveness in the uncertain near term, but price increases are likely.

"Our value proposition with Radeon is delivering end users more for their money, and as things change in the market, we want to make sure that we continue to do that and deliver the best performance per dollar that we can to gamers," David McAfee said. "Even in spite of increasing component costs, we're going to drive that as aggressively as we possibly can. To make sure we're maximising the performance per dollar."

"I'm not going to say prices across all these components will remain flat," David McAffee continues. "I think inevitably, something's going to happen. And we're trying to mitigate that as much as possible to ensure that we maintain that great value for end users."