- AMD’s David McAfee was interviewed at CES 2026
- Executive Said RAM Crisis Won’t Affect Radeon GPU Stock
- McAfee has not ruled out price increases and has in fact suggested that they are almost inevitable. But if they do occur, any increase in costs should be modest.
An AMD executive has assured PC gamers that there won’t be any shortages of its Radeon graphics cards due to the RAM crisis, but there’s no guarantee that prices for these GPUs won’t increase.
David McAfee, Vice President of Client Channel Business at AMD, was interviewed by TweakTown at CES 2026, and he had some interesting revelations regarding Radeon GPUs and the memory crisis as it relates to VRAM.
TweakTown raised the issue of the current huge RAM price hikes and how they could affect AMD’s GPUs in terms of cost, or certain models being “paused” due to supply or production difficulties related to securing VRAM (all of this is happening against the notable backdrop of a bunch of rumors around AMD Radeon price hikes and speculation that some more affordable GPUs might be abandoned by Team Red).
McAfee said: “Currently, we have very long-term, in-depth partnerships with all DRAM manufacturers to ensure our DRAM supply needs are met for our products. [Radeon] GPU, to make sure we’re building what gamers need. »
He continued: “From this perspective, I am not concerned that the current constraints will lead to a shortage of GPUs in the market. I think we have partnerships that are long enough, deep enough, and strategic enough, and it’s a critical issue that we work with these partners day in and day out.
McAfee therefore seems confident that AMD will not stumble in terms of purchasing VRAM or having enough to maintain production volumes of Radeon graphics cards in the future. Of course, there is no question of abandoning budget models.
However, TweakTown then moved on to the topic of pricing, where the news wasn’t as positive.
McAfee prefaced here by noting that AMD will do everything in its power to combat the rising prices of its GPUs, saying: “Our value proposition with Radeon offers end users more bang for their buck, and as things evolve in the market, we want to make sure we continue to do that and give gamers the best performance per dollar possible.” per dollar.”
However, McAfee added: “I’m not going to say that the prices of all these components will remain stable. I think inevitably something will happen. And we try to mitigate that as much as possible to ensure that we maintain that great value for end users.
Analysis: weathering the RAM storm
So, on the one hand, the executive says that AMD is in a good position in terms of VRAM supply and that it will try to do everything to mitigate any price increases for Radeon GPUs to ensure that the value proposition of these products is maintained.
But on the other hand, McAfee notably refuses to say that there will be no price increases, and otherwise indicates that it is inevitable that “something will happen” on this front.
So the bottom line appears to be that some price increases are very likely, but we hope they will be relatively contained and modest – and inventory issues should not make them worse.
Of course, this is just a prediction, although it comes from someone within AMD who is very well placed to make this claim (although it’s obviously also someone who needs to talk about Radeon products). How the memory crisis plays out throughout 2026 – and quite possibly beyond – will be key, and no one yet really knows how it will play out in the longer term.
In the short term, the rise in RAM prices has been a massive shock, and one that isn’t going away anytime soon. Some predictions suggest that we won’t return to normal with system RAM or VRAM prices this year, and that things won’t start to normalize until 2027 – and others even predict a rough road for RAM until 2028.
Elsewhere at CES 2026, other AMD executives were invited to talk about the RAM crisis, and another noteworthy report comes from Tom’s Hardware.
Our sister site spoke to another AMD VP (senior), Rahul Tikoo, who said of the RAM crisis: “I think people who need the technology [a PC] need the technology, and they will buy it – although consumers may decide that they have a choice in the amount of memory, processor, “and that “consumers have a wide assortment of choices at all sorts of price points that they can buy for the coming year.”
In summary, people who must Buying a PC this year will mean paying the price for more expensive RAM – that’s just a fact – and either compromising by having less system memory or cutting corners in other areas. That’s what Tikoo’s reference to processor choice is for: buying a cheaper processor than expected to save money that can then be put toward purchasing that more expensive RAM.
Tikoo is not suggesting that this is an ideal scenario, but simply that if people must buying a PC this year, in this climate of rising costs, there are options – although the unspoken suggestion is that they would probably be better off waiting if they had the choice.
However, for those who aren’t trying to build or buy a PC and simply want to upgrade their graphics card, the news is more positive for future Radeon owners. Regardless, as noted, some price hikes are still likely in this case, but we hope they’ll be minor bumps, and certainly nothing like what we’ve seen with RAM (which has been ridiculous, frankly).
More broadly, AMD seems to be well prepared to weather the RAM storm this year, at least according to the various comments from its senior executives at CES.
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