GPU Prices Climb Again: AMD Hikes Kits ~10% as Memory Costs Triple

Wondering why graphics cards keep getting more expensive? AMD has told board partners including ASUS, Sapphire and XFX that GPU-plus-memory kit prices rise about 10% from July. The root cause is the AI boom: data centers are swallowing memory-fab capacity, and consumer GDDR6 spot prices have roughly tripled — from about $2.50 to $7.50 per gigabyte — since autumn 2025, when contracted pricing expired. Retail prices should rise somewhat less, since the kit is only part of a card’s bill of materials. But with VRAM now the dominant cost on high-end boards, cheap GPUs aren’t coming back while the AI buildout runs.