PowerGPU, a system integrator known for its high-performance gaming PCs, just issued a devastating price warning on social media. The company said on its X account that costs of SSDs and other parts have gone up, and that it expects to increase prices soon. This is catastrophic news for gamers and enthusiasts who have been suffering from continuous prices increases on memory and storage since late last year, which has been brought by the incessant demand for memory and storage chips for AI data centers.
“We just got word that SSD and other part prices have gone up again,” the company said in its post. “So what is in stock right now is the last at that price. Expect price increases by early next week. We appreciate you all supporting us and want to remain transparent through everything.”
Even though data centers are expected to use up to 70% of the global supply of memory chips this year, we saw some signs that supply is stabilizing. By late January, trends showed that memory pricing has started leveling off — although, not at the prices we want. Even Japan and Germany, which were hit supply shortages alongside the price increases, only saw a 0.1% increase last month.
Unfortunately, it seems that that was only a short respite, and apparently SSDs will now take the lead when it comes to price hikes. What’s more disturbing is that PowerGPU said that other components are following suit — while it did not confirm which parts are affected, memory modules and GPUs were among the PC components that were heavily affected by the recent chip shortage.
Still, we cannot say we were surprised by this development. Industry experts and analysts have been saying that memory and storage prices are expected to continue rising in the first half of 2026, with the situation possibly lasting well into 2027. A Kingston representative even said that you should not wait for lower prices if you need a RAM or SSD upgrade as “prices will continue to go up,” while a Sapphire employee said in December 2025 that prices will only begin to stabilize in next six to eight months (likely between June and August of this year).
