A survey of more than 1,500 PC gamers found that 60% have no plans to build a new PC in the next two years. The reason is not a lack of interest in gaming. It is that the bill of materials for an enthusiast build has roughly doubled in eighteen months — and AI infrastructure spending is the direct cause.
The numbers that broke the upgrade cycle
The headline figure comes from a Tom’s Hardware reader survey conducted in May 2026. The sample skews toward enthusiasts — exactly the segment that historically rebuilds every two to three years — which makes the finding more, not less, alarming for hardware OEMs.
The component prices are the story:
- 32GB of DDR5 RAM: around $360, up from roughly $90 eighteen months ago — a 4x increase
- 2TB NVMe SSDs: prices roughly doubled since late 2024
- High-end GPUs: RTX 5090 at $1,999 MSRP (rarely available at MSRP), RTX 5080 at $999
- Mid-range GPUs: RTX 5070 at $549, RTX 5060 Ti street prices well above MSRP
A mid-range enthusiast build that cost around $1,500 in early 2024 now costs $2,400–$2,800 for equivalent performance. That’s not a price increase consumers absorb. That’s a price increase consumers postpone. The PC enthusiast segment has historically been the most willing-to-pay audience in gaming — when it sits out, the market has a problem.
Why this is happening: AI ate the silicon supply
The single biggest driver is memory pricing, and the single biggest cause of memory pricing is AI data centre demand.
Hyperscalers — Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon — are buying DRAM, HBM, and NAND flash at volumes that have absorbed most of the available supply through 2026. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have prioritised HBM (high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators) and enterprise DDR5 over consumer DRAM, because the margins are dramatically higher.
The result: consumer RAM and SSD prices are not just rising with inflation. They are being squeezed by a buyer with effectively unlimited demand. Nvidia’s data centre revenue alone exceeded $100 billion in fiscal 2025, and that money pulls supply away from every other use case.
Add the same US tariff and logistics costs that are hitting consoles, and the gaming PC market is being pressured from three sides at once.
What Steam’s data confirms
The Tom’s Hardware survey is intent data — what gamers say they will do. The Steam Hardware Survey is behavioural data — what they have actually bought. Both point in the same direction.
In April 2026, the RTX 3060 retook the top GPU spot at 3.99% of all Steam users — a card released in February 2021, more than five years ago. The RTX 4060 Laptop GPU sits second at 3.78%. The RTX 5070, despite being the most-discussed mid-range card of the current generation, has reached only 2.86% share.
47% of NVIDIA users on Steam are running GPUs that are two generations old or more. That is a far longer tail than in any previous cycle. In 2018, by way of comparison, the equivalent figure was closer to 25%.
The component pricing snapshot
| Component | Mid-2024 typical price | May 2026 typical price | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32GB DDR5 RAM (6000MHz) | ~$90 | ~$360 | +300% |
| 2TB NVMe Gen4 SSD | ~$120 | ~$240 | +100% |
| RTX 5070 (mid-range GPU) | — | $549 MSRP / $620+ street | New SKU, above MSRP |
| RTX 5080 | — | $999 MSRP / $1,100+ street | New SKU, above MSRP |
| Total mid-range build | ~$1,500 | ~$2,400 | +60% |
Build costs have risen faster than wages in every major Western market. That is the structural problem.
The business impact: who loses revenue
If 60% of the enthusiast segment is sitting on its hands for two years, the revenue impact lands on several public companies simultaneously.
Nvidia is partly insulated. Its data centre business now dwarfs gaming — gaming was approximately $11 billion of Nvidia’s $130+ billion fiscal 2025 revenue, and the segment grew slower than data centre by a wide margin. A soft consumer gaming GPU market is a manageable issue for Nvidia, not an existential one.
AMD is more exposed. Radeon gaming GPUs and Ryzen consumer CPUs are a larger share of AMD’s revenue mix than gaming is for Nvidia. AMD is also fighting Intel on CPU share while trying to expand its own data centre footprint — a soft PC market constrains its consumer cash flow.
Prebuilt OEMs — Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, ASUS — face the most direct pressure. A mid-range gaming PC that retailed at $1,200 in 2023 now retails at $1,800–$2,200. Unit volumes are falling, and the OEMs are absorbing some of the component cost increase rather than passing all of it through, which compresses already-thin margins.
Retailers like Best Buy, Newegg, and Micro Center see softer hardware revenue. The bright spot is that the upgrade dollars haven’t disappeared entirely — they’ve shifted toward partial upgrades (one new GPU, keep the old RAM and CPU) and toward prebuilt systems where the OEM has absorbed some of the pain.
The contrarian read
The bull case for the PC market is that pent-up demand is building. The longer gamers wait, the larger the eventual upgrade wave when memory pricing normalises. Nvidia’s RTX 60-series GPUs in 2027 and 2028 will land into a market full of buyers who have been holding off for years.
The bear case is that the structural dynamic has changed. AI data centre demand for memory is not a temporary shock — it is a multi-year capex cycle that hyperscalers are still expanding. If consumer DRAM stays priced as a residual product behind HBM and enterprise SKUs, the affordability problem persists into 2027.
The honest answer is somewhere in the middle. Memory pricing is cyclical, and capacity is being added — but the AI demand profile is unprecedented and the supply response will take time.
What changes the dynamic
Three things would unfreeze the PC market:
- Memory capacity expansion: Samsung and SK Hynix have announced new fab capacity coming online in 2027. If consumer DRAM gets meaningful allocation rather than being squeezed by HBM priority, RAM prices could fall 30–40% within twelve months of that supply arriving.
- AI capex moderation: If hyperscaler AI infrastructure spending slows — for any reason, from regulatory pressure to investor pushback on returns — memory demand softens and consumer pricing eases.
- Tariff relief: A change in US tariff policy on imported electronics would shave direct cost from every component shipped into the US market.
None of these are guaranteed. None are imminent.
What it means for publishers and platform holders
For game publishers, a frozen PC hardware base means slower performance-baseline expansion. Studios that targeted RTX 4070-class hardware for 2026 releases are now planning around RTX 3060-class minimum specs for 2027 — because that is what the installed base actually has.
Valve, as the dominant PC distribution platform via Steam, has less to worry about. Steam users who already own libraries continue to play and continue to buy software. But hardware-driven engagement growth slows when the hardware itself isn’t refreshing.
The pairing with the console pricing story is the broader concern: every premium gaming hardware category — console and PC — is now priced beyond a meaningful slice of its target audience for the first time in a decade. The mass-market gaming hardware era may be quietly ending.
For related coverage, see our analysis of how console pricing is reshaping the gaming market and Nvidia’s data centre revenue dominance.
FAQ
1. What did the survey actually find?
A Tom’s Hardware survey of more than 1,500 readers in May 2026 found that exactly 60% had no plans to build a new PC in the next two years. The sample skewed toward enthusiasts — the segment that historically rebuilds most frequently — which makes the finding particularly significant for the broader PC hardware market.
2. Why are PC component prices so high right now?
The primary driver is AI infrastructure demand. Hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon are buying DRAM, HBM, and NAND flash at unprecedented volumes to build out AI data centres. Memory manufacturers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have prioritised higher-margin HBM and enterprise DDR5 over consumer products, squeezing supply and pushing prices up.
3. How much have RAM and SSD prices actually risen?
32GB of DDR5 RAM that cost around $90 in mid-2024 now costs around $360 — a roughly 4x increase. 2TB NVMe SSDs have approximately doubled in price over the same period. Memory is the single biggest component price increase in this cycle.
4. What does the Steam Hardware Survey tell us?
The April 2026 Steam Hardware Survey shows the RTX 3060 — a card from February 2021 — has retaken the top GPU spot at 3.99% of all users. The newer RTX 5070 sits at only 2.86%. Roughly 47% of NVIDIA users on Steam are running cards that are two generations old or more, indicating extended upgrade cycles across the user base.
5. Which companies are most affected?
Nvidia is partly insulated because its data centre business dwarfs consumer gaming revenue. AMD is more exposed because gaming GPUs and consumer CPUs are a larger share of its revenue mix. Prebuilt OEMs — Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, ASUS — face the most direct pressure as gaming PC unit volumes decline and margins compress.
6. Is this just a temporary supply issue?
Partly. Memory pricing is historically cyclical, and Samsung and SK Hynix have announced new fab capacity coming online in 2027. However, AI data centre demand is structural rather than temporary, and the supply response will take time. The affordability problem could persist into 2027 even with announced capacity expansions.
7. What does this mean for game publishers?
Game studios are recalibrating minimum and recommended specs downward to match the actual installed base. Studios that targeted RTX 4070-class hardware for 2026 releases are now planning around RTX 3060-class minimums for 2027 titles. The frozen hardware base slows performance-baseline expansion for the entire industry.
8. Will PC gaming hardware ever get cheaper again?
Likely yes, but timing is uncertain. Three things would help: new memory fab capacity coming online in 2027, moderation in AI hyperscaler capex spending, and changes in US tariff policy. If all three move favourably, prices could ease meaningfully through 2027. None of them are guaranteed in the near term.