- AMD’s GPUs are rumored to get more price hikes
- This follows price increases that were apparently implemented last month
- A separate claim is that AMD will also focus more on 8GB graphics cards rather than 16GB models
The GPU grapevine is once again buzzing about AMD’s plans for its Radeon graphics cards, which apparently include another price hike and an adjustment in production strategy to favor 8GB products.
VideoCardz reports that these two rumors come from different sources, but they were both sent via Board Channels in China, which is a font of supply chain speculation across Asia.
First, let’s look at the talk of price increases, where it is claimed that either later this month or in March, some AMD graphics card manufacturers may increase the price of their products after a 5% to 10% increase that happened in January.
The extent of the increase this time around is not known, but the expectation is that it will bring these Radeon GPUs in line with the price of comparable Nvidia models.
The second source floats the idea that AMD will change its production levels of Radeon graphics cards to favor 8GB models more, but that any adjustment will be more of a tweak than a major shift on the assembly lines.
The further claim is that this new strategy will push forward two more 8GB GPUs with higher production levels: the RX 9060 XT 8GB (there is also a 16GB model of this card) and the RX 7650 GRE.
Analysis: 8GB priority makes perfect sense for both AMD and Nvidia
In case you were wondering what the RX 7650 GRE is, this is an Asia-only GPU from AMD, so you can’t get it from resellers elsewhere (although you could get it shipped from Hong Kong or similar via a third-party marketplace seller, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a number of reasons, like returns and customer support to boot). It’s basically a slightly faster version of the RX 7600, although there isn’t much of a difference.
As mentioned, there are two variants of the RX 9060 XT, one with 16GB of video RAM and the other with 8GB, so gamers will no doubt groan to hear that the latter may be favored at stock levels.
There has long been a debate about whether 8GB of VRAM is enough for modern games, and I won’t go into that again here, but there’s certainly a fair amount of skepticism about this – and more to the point for me, the level of future proofing you get with this amount of video memory.
Of course, with the RAM pricing crisis also affecting video memory, it only makes sense that AMD might pursue a course that shifts priorities away from more (relatively) affordable GPUs that pile on the VRAM like the RX 9060 XT 16GB. Nvidia is rumored to be doing the same, especially with the RTX 5060 Ti, which also has 8GB and 16GB spins.
As for the rumored price hikes, AMD’s GPUs are already creeping up in that regard, which may mirror the aforementioned previous price hikes (which have been rumored to go back a bit) to some extent. Team Red has even admitted that supply prices may not ‘remain flat’ across its GPUs as we head into 2026.
Looking at the RX 9060 XT 16GB, the cheapest I can see this for at the time of writing on Newegg is $440 in the US, which is almost $100 more than its launch price ($349) last year. While it was good value at that release price, it doesn’t look that smart at the moment.
Interestingly, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB – which is faster than the 9060 XT 16GB, but not by much (ray tracing aside) – has maintained the same price gap with the AMD GPU compared to their respective launch prices. They’re $80 apart now (for the cheapest models on Newegg), and the MSRPs were also $80 apart. This seems to support the idea that AMD Radeon prices will track Nvidia’s mark-ups, which again only makes sense.
We may well see GPU prices creep up further over the next few months as predicted on Board Channels – but that’s hardly a shocker given the RAM crisis, which despite some signs of leveling off at the moment, is still expected to get worse during this first quarter of 2026.
If you’ve been thinking about buying one of these more affordable 16GB GPUs, chances are now is the time to do so. Either that, or be prepared to wait out the crisis, which could last through this year and into next, or at least that’s what some analysts are predicting.
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