- With Massive DRAM Demand NVIDIA & AMD Graphics Card Could Cost More Next Year
- NVIDIA And AMD Graphics Card Price Could Rise Over 5℅ In 2020
For folks waiting to get NVIDIA or AMD Gaming graphics card when the price comes down, well DigiTimes tries to explain today that they are expected to climb even further in 2020 and graphics DRAM shortage would be the primary reason for it.
Unfortunately Graphics DRAM prices are expected to go more than 5% up in 2020, which could particularly affect NVIDIA & AMD Graphics Cards. According to DigiTimes (viaDRAMeXchange) states that graphics DRAM, or the memory that is used by GPU manufacturers to power their products, is expected to get more expensive by Q1 2020. It is stated that prices for graphics DRAM can rise by over 5℅.
- Graphics DRAM is more sensitive to demand change than other types of memory products, so its price fluctuations can be dramatic as well. With OEM clients raising their stock-up demand, Graphics DRAM contract prices are projected to increase by over 5% QoQ, the highest among all memory products. Via DRAMeXchange
You might be thinking what's the reason for the price rise, keep in mind that most consumers of Graphics DRAM are shifting from GDDR5 to GDDR6 memory. NVIDIA was the first to switch over to the new graphics interface, starting off with their GeForce RTX lineup. Same with AMD, they had a large stock of older GDDR5 memory-based graphics cards, they too are transitioning their latest Navi cards to GDDR6.
- In the graphics card market, the majority of NVIDIA’s shipments of graphics cards are based on the RTX platform, and most of these RTX cards use GDDR6 memory. AMD is also proactively destocking its older graphics cards with GDDR5 memory; the company has completely switched to GDDR6 for its latest NAVI series of GPUs. In the game console market, Sony and Microsoft are still relying on GDDR5 for PS4 and Xbox One, respectively.
- However, their next-generation consoles to be released in 2H20 (i.e., Sony’s PS5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X) will be equipped with GDDR6 memory. The memory capacity of these upcoming consoles could be raised up to 16GB, which is twice that of current mainstream graphics cards. Given these developments, demand is expected to exceed supply for graphics DRAM in 2020. Via DRAMeXchange
Since Microsoft and Sony are expected to launch their Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles in 2020 which will also adopt AMD's Navi architecture and the respective GDDR6 memory architecture. A lot of supply would be required to keep up with the demand of the next-gen consoles and that's makes us and many analysts to believe that Graphics DRAM would be seeing a major shortage.
- Currently, Graphics DRAM accounts for less than 6% of the industry’s overall output. Owing to a constrained supply and the abovementioned demand drivers, quotes are starting to stabilize. Because suppliers will not be able to make quick enough adjustments in their product mixes to immediately meet the rising demand, TrendForce forecasts a sharp rebound in the contract prices of Graphics DRAM in 2020, which will register perhaps the largest increase among products for different memory applications. Via DRAMeXchange
Speaking with Analyst of TrendForce, Arvil Wu, it is mentioned that graphics DRAM has a higher production cost per chip and while these reflect the contracts between the DRAM suppliers and graphics manufacturers, they still lead to the price being affected of the consumer products. This could lead to a price hike of not only existing GDDR6 based graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA but also their next-generation products. But hey no cause for alarm, the GDDR6 stock is still doing good and we haven't really seen a price increase on the graphics cards for now.
