CES 2026 proved the PC trade is hosed this yr

Dell’s XPS 14 now prices over $2,000. An AMD government predicts that PC builders will doubtless make piecemeal upgrades this yr, as a substitute of constructing totally new techniques. And new AI supercomputers from NVIDIA and AMD are gobbling up the RAM market. At CES 2026, it was arduous to not discover the dire yr forward for the computing trade, one that may doubtless result in increased costs and extra restricted availability for shopper items throughout the board.

Actually, although, the present simply confirmed what was obvious since RAM prices skyrocketed over the last few months, pushed by demand from AI datacenters. As Samsung’s advertising and marketing chief, Wonjin Lee, told Bloomberg at CES: “There’s going to be points round semiconductor provides, and it’ll have an effect on everybody. Costs are going up at the same time as we communicate.”

Dell’s new XPS 14 and XPS 16 are among the many earliest techniques hit by these calls for. Final yr’s fashions began at $1,699 and $1,899, respectively, and we had been initially advised the brand new fashions would truly are available in cheaper at $1,650 and $1,850. However Dell later introduced a surprising value leap: The XPS 14 now begins at $2,050, whereas the XPS 16 is $2,200.

Whereas it did not take a lot to configure the sooner fashions upwards of $2,000, it is genuinely wild to me that the entry-level fashions are already beginning there. And in the meantime, Apple nonetheless hasn’t budged its $1,599 MacBook Professional 14-inch pricing. At the least Dell nonetheless is available in cheaper than the $2,499 MacBook Professional 16-inch.

On the desktop entrance, AMD’s David McAfee, Company Vice President and GM of Shopper Channel Enterprise, famous that the longevity of the corporate’s AM4 and AM5 platforms may be a boon for avid gamers, since they’ll improve their CPUs with out shopping for new RAM kits and motherboards. That permits for a pathway to raised efficiency with out paying out the nostril for over-priced RAM.

“I feel that shall be doubtlessly a development that we see in 2026 with extra part upgrades, versus full system swap outs and, and altogether rebuilds,” he mentioned in a bunch interview with Engadget and different retailers. “A few of the hottest CPUs which can be nonetheless working in avid gamers’ platforms are elements just like the 2600 again to the Pinnacle Ridge days, or 3000 sequence… Stepping even from there into somewhat bit extra fashionable 5,000 sequence processors in an AM4 socket and motherboard, there’s a fairly large enhance there.”

McAfee added that round 30 to 40 p.c of AMD’s enterprise nonetheless revolves across the AM4 platform, even with out the specter of a wild reminiscence market.

“There isn’t any product that has reminiscence in it that is resistant to a few of these forces round DRAM pricing and, and what it is doing to the market,” he mentioned, when requested about potential GPU value will increase. “I feel the, the reality is the volatility that we have seen over the previous two months or so has actually been unprecedented.”

Wanting forward, he mentioned he expects costs to settle inside the first three to 6 months of the yr, however he did not talk about his reasoning additional. As an apart, he additionally famous that AMD’s X3D chips, which function 3D V-cache, truly do not see a lot of a success from slower RAM. Their excessive quantities of onboard L2 and L3 cache make up for much less best reminiscence switch speeds, McAfee mentioned.

That McAfee commented in any respect in regards to the state of RAM is noteworthy. Each PC maker I’ve requested, together with Dell and Acer, refused to touch upon the unstable state of the reminiscence trade forward of CES. Maybe they had been hoping issues would relax earlier than they needed to value their new techniques. In the end, they’re beholden to an more and more restricted provide of RAM.

And the place is all that reminiscence going? At CES, NVIDIA introduced its new Vera Rubin AI supercomputer, which helps as much as 54TB of RAM throughout 36 Vera CPUs and 20.7TB of reminiscence throughout 72 GPUs. AMD, as nicely, introduced its new Helios AI rack, which helps as much as 31TB of reminiscence throughout 72 AMD Intuition MI455X GPUs. Given the infinite urge for food for computing to energy AI mannequin constructing and inferencing, there’s doubtless going to be a major demand for these beastly techniques.

Put merely: Our international provide of reminiscence is being sacrificed to appease the AI trade. That’s excellent news for the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and NVIDIA, however dangerous information for anybody who cares about PCs and the buyer merchandise we use every single day. Prepare for a yr of value hikes.