Soaring RAM Prices Have Reportedly Halved Motherboard Sales; Are CPUs Next?

It was expected that higher RAM prices would not just reduce memory sales but would also affect the overall PC hardware sales significantly.

Major Motherboard Vendors Reportedly Saw a 40-50% Reduction in Motherboard Sales; Overall PC Market Expected to Face a Growth Slowdown

The impact of sky-high prices of DRAM is now clear on the overall PC hardware market. Since DRAM started to soar in prices, many have refrained from buying a new DDR5 RAM kit or module, which has also forced them to delay building a new PC or upgrading. A new report has suggested the same, but the impact is quite big, particularly on motherboard sales.

Gaz Log reports from Board Channels that major motherboard vendors like MSI, GIGABYTE, ASUS, etc. are seeing a 40-50% reduction in motherboard sales compared to the same time period last year. The sales are usually higher in this time frame every year due to festive season discounts, but due to soaring DRAM prices since October, things have escalated quickly to the point that DDR5 RAM kits/modules are selling for 2X-4X higher. It’s now being said that motherboard vendors will have to reevaluate their sales strategy for the months ahead.

One of the major reasons for such a decline in sales is the market’s transition to DDR5 platforms. Both the latest AMD and Intel processors have now completely transitioned to DDR5, and we are no longer seeing DDR4 motherboards as prevalent as DDR5 ones in the market. Since DDR5 prices got quite stable early this year, a lot of users completely transitioned to the latest AM5 and LGA 1851 platforms.

Many users were still waiting to upgrade to a higher memory capacity, but they aren’t able to do it right now. Those who were planning to build a PC from scratch have no options other than to wait or settle for older hardware, which will only bring compromises. That said, if motherboard sales have fallen to this extent, then it’s obvious that it will also have a direct effect on CPU sales as well. In fact, CPU sales should already be much lower than the same period last year.

We don’t know for how long this will continue, but it appears that it’s just the beginning. Many have started to bundle a DDR5 RAM kit with motherboards these days, but users who already have a motherboard won’t benefit from such a deal.

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