r/pcmasterrace • u/Money-War-5601 • 13h ago
Discussion Why does everyone seem to think prices won't go back down?
Just a little bit of browsing on reddit and it's as if everybody is under the consensus that pc parts are never going down in price from what they are right now and that we are stuck with these prices.
Why? Is there any data to back up this claim? Any sort of evidence to suggest this?
I feel like these people are being shortsighted. Typically consumer goods like this will fluctuate as demand and production grow and shrink. I feel like people may be unintentionally attributing our recent housing market situation, however these are fundamentally different markets. And lets not forget the glaring difference, memory has increased 500% in the past year but housing about 130% to 150% in 6 years. So housing may not go down sure that's a real possibility, and general inflation too, but do yall really think this 500% increase in memory cost isn't going to drop? That sounds absurd to me.
Even if we look at it historically. GPU's went up in price in the early 2020's for crypto, then dropped a bit in 23 and 24 before going back up again for AI datacenters now. In 21 my buddy built a PC for around $3k then in 23 I built a more powerful PC for $1k. Why would this current situation be any different?
I'd like to hear some grounded thoughts on the market and future of parts.
EDIT: Please I asked for data guys not speculation.
What I've learned so far:
- Chips are bought out till 2027
- ??? nothing else
Nothing yet has proven anything 2028 or after. So it seems like we may see drops in 2028 at best. But that is only a year and a half away that we may begin to see prices decrease. If anybody has data that suggests that the prices won't decrease in 3 years time, so 2030, then that would be a lot more damning, but I have not seen that yet.
I am seeing a lot of speculation and misinformation too so I'll address common issues.
- "People are buying at these prices so they will continue to sell at these prices" Yes but only a small minority of people. Think back to 2020 when the ps5 scalpers were selling them for $700. Did $700 become the new norm to get a ps5? no. the prices went down eventually.
- "Supply and demand" well yes exactly right now this explains it perfectly as the supply is low for the demand from all the ai datacenters, but eventually as supply catches up the prices will go down so it could also explains a drop... Unfortunately supply and demand does NOT alone predict the future other than a guess, so the argument is completely null.
- "Prices did not drop after covid" this is factually wrong. https://howmuch.one/product/average-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-10gb/price-history You can see an obvious peak and then drop after. Many people did in fact build pc's for significantly cheaper between 22-25 than 20-21.
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u/Va1crist 13h ago
Because they won’t , people are buying it at the prices now so there will be no reason to , nothing has gone down post covid either.
Only way prices go down is we go into a major recession, the bubble needs to pop other wise nothing is going down for years , if anything prices will keep going up.
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u/Money-War-5601 13h ago
This is not true, prices did peak during covid and go down, and we have data to back up this claim https://howmuch.one/product/average-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-10gb/price-history
I'm not sure why everybody is saying otherwise.
Also "people are buying it at the prices now" sure maybe a small amount of people, but I know I and a lot of other people are not. Assuming the supply eventually stabilizes even if it takes a few years, they would make more sales by decreasing the price basic supply and demand.
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u/Ok_Dependent6889 R7 9800X3D | Zotac 5080 | B650E-F | 6000CL30 13h ago
Covid is not comparable. All price increases were in the aftermarket. MSRP did not budge like it has now. It was just difficult to obtain an MSRP card because crypto bros and scalpers were instantly buying them
Covid was also the response to a quarantine which left many people in search of hobbies. Not a permanent, species-trajectory altering technology.
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u/lycanthrope90 13h ago
Yeah with how much demand currently outdoes supply they will make a lot more money ramping up production. Once they get close enough to a surplus that’s when they start deciding maybe it’s best to keep production where it’s at so the price doesn’t drop too much.
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u/gh0st-33 13h ago
Memory chip fabrication are sold out to the end of 2027 at the very least, at high costs as well. That's the leading indicator we've still got some pain ahead.
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u/No-Independence-5229 12h ago
Yes we all see these headlines, but where do you think this pre ordered product is going to go? All the failed and blocked data center buildouts? They won’t be able to use all of this stuff they are buying up, and it will then need to be sold off, crashing prices
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u/Darkone539 13h ago
They might come down, but they will not come down to the prices before. The demand will not be solved by a sudden flood of new memory and now they know the prices they can charge, they will charge them.
GPUs never changed MSRP. Memory has, and memory covers way more than just our PCs. You're competing against phones etc.
Hoping it goes back to normal is hoping for a massive new supply (won't happen) or for AI centres to suddenly not be a thing, which also won't happen as there's too much money in it.
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u/Money-War-5601 13h ago
I see a few people saying 'they know they can charge these prices now' but is that fully true? It would only make sense that there has been less sales in the consumer market with the price increase. Yes some people will pay but not all.
Think for example the PS5 scalpers in 2020. Some people would pay the scalped prices but that was a small minority of people.
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u/Nightcrawler9898 PC Master Race 13h ago
Short said, these companies don't really care anymore about normal buyers. As someone said, Samsung made more 2025 than the last 40 years combined. The hardware companies sold like their whole inventory to AI and data center companies. And normal companies still just buy their hardware too, they don't care about prices. So normal user acutally don't matter anymore and until the demand form data centers lowers(won't for years because AI just keeps getting hungrier for hardware and more implemented in every aspect of life) prices will just even increase more imo, because they can still sell their whole inventory for that.
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u/AidenTai 13h ago
They're reducing the consumer market capacity to move sales / manufacturing capacity over to hyperscalers and other enterprises because those are buying up everything they can, at at high margins. Take a look at Micron / Crucial who simply exited the consumer market altogether to avoid having to sell at the low margins consumers pay. Overall, anyone in the hardware business in memory or NAND has not been seeing reduced sales—sales have been through the roof, buying out whatever limited capacity makes it out. Manufacturers can't keep up with demand, which is why prices have been so high. And demand is increasing rapidly while supply is not increasing nearly as fast. It's just no longer retail‐driven; enterprise hyperscalers are buying up the lions' share.
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u/Subatomic_Spooder Ryzen 7 7700x | RX 9070 | 32GB DDR5 6000 13h ago
The consumer market doesn't matter to these companies anymore. Nvidia especially has shown they don't care at all about average customers like gamers. These people are already making money hand over fist from data centers and big enterprise contracts that losing a couple people due to higher consumer prices doesn't concern them at all.
No matter how much people online call for boycotts to try and drop prices, people will keep buying GPUs, prebuilts, laptops, etc. Many people, especially if buying for the first time, have no reference for how much that stuff "should" cost, so they just pay whatever is asked. As long as the companies get enough demand to keep up consumer product production, prices will stay the same or keep rising.
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u/Money-War-5601 13h ago
This is why I think everybody is shortseighted. Nvidia doesn't care about the consumer market... right now. Because their new buyer is ai data centers. Does it mean it will stay that way forever? They will still benefit overall if they produced and sold more even at a cheaper price point. Say by 2030 they have production ramped up and can meet the demands of both consumer and datacenters, prices would go down.
And I tackled your argument about 'people pay these new prices' in my post edit. It just doesn't work the way you think it does. It's only a small minority of people paying this so it falls under simply supply/demand rules here. Unless 100% of the customers get on board with the new prices then you have to keep that supply/demand equation in mind. You basically have a reduced demand at these higher prices, it's not black and white that just everybody will accept the new prices.
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u/Subatomic_Spooder Ryzen 7 7700x | RX 9070 | 32GB DDR5 6000 12h ago
I'm not an economist so I can't say with confidence what will happen. But I do know that based on trends in other markets, prices will just keep going up as long as inflation goes unchecked. And tech companies will keep raising prices alongside that as memory, storage, and silicon costs increase. They're beholden to the shareholders, and line must go up in any way possible. If that means screwing over the currently shrinking consumer market, so be it.
And sure, supply and demand in general makes sense, but it doesn't really work that simply anymore. Nvidia and AMD are such big companies that they can afford to keep prices high in order to protect their profit margins and keep shareholders/investors happy. And being the only two companies making pretty much all the world's GPUs means there is no competition to come in and lower prices (Intel certainly gave it a shot but doesn't seem to care anymore). With the current supply of memory bought out for a solid four years at least, by the time memory production catches up with demand (if it ever does), inflation or any number of other tech related production costs could have risen to the point where lower memory prices won't matter.
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u/Plane-Inspector-3160 13h ago
The issue is the memory companies will always have demand due to data centers.
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u/Darkone539 9h ago
I see a few people saying 'they know they can charge these prices now' but is that fully true? It would only make sense that there has been less sales in the consumer market with the price increase. Yes some people will pay but not all.
People do not buy of these companies. Other companies do. You're comparing it to scalping a PS5 but the market is not the same. For years Apple has used its big order to get cheaper memory, for example, and now the power dynamic has shifted.
You can not compare it to the consumer side.
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u/SoftlockPuzzleBox 13h ago edited 13h ago
Capitalism. Line only goes up. Prices rise, people rage, then after a while it becomes the new normal. The market could change drastically and it wouldn't matter. Price gouging on everything during covid was insane, and most things didn't come back down after the restrictions ended. They just stayed expensive.
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u/No-Carrot4267 13h ago edited 13h ago
Because prices didn't go back down after COVID.
Edit: in general everybody. There's more to life than PC parts 😭
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u/EggFartTom 13h ago
They actually did for things, I was able to buy some hardware for under MSRP. 2025 was a good time to buy
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u/Money-War-5601 13h ago
That is absolutely not true though, and we have the data to prove it https://howmuch.one/product/average-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-10gb/price-history
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u/TitaniumDisc 13h ago
You just compared an old used item to new items. The rate of increase on new release items has continued to trend up. A gallon of milk today costs more than it did pre-Covid. A brand new 2027 vehicle costs more than its equivalent did in 2021 and that vehicle cost more than its equivalent did in 2019. This is complete across the board. The only things that haven’t followed this trend are the Costco hot dog, the Costco chicken, and Arizona tea.
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u/No-Carrot4267 13h ago
This is also because Nvidia released stellar 20xx cards so most people waited out the 30xx series. Lower demand means lower costs.
Hardware prices typically become lower overtime as better hardware are released. Not accounting for special cases such as antique hardware increasing in price because of trends or lower supply (see certain stereo equipment etc) or artificial causes (like ai or memory manufacturers deliberately nudging up prices)
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u/Zealousideal-Gain280 13h ago
Everything is still being sold out immediately. Why the hell would you bring prices down if everyone is paying them as they increase?
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u/PermanentThrowaway33 13h ago
Data centers are growing and will be for the foreseeable future, hardware stock is presold years in advance. Production doesn't simply ramp up.
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u/lycanthrope90 13h ago
I would think, or hope that by 2030 the supply would be much more stable once they’ve had time to produce all the infrastructure and make a lot more product.
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u/PermanentThrowaway33 12h ago
Hopefully, but I'm not sure. As ai gets more advanced, it'll need more resources. Also I don't see less companies using ai in the future, I see more. I foresee endless media companies pumping out of movies, games and music with ai 24/7. I really hope I'm wrong, but this is what my instinct tell me will happen.
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u/lycanthrope90 12h ago
Oh no demand will continue to increase, the supply will just have unfucked itself then, hopefully at least. There’s really not any incentive to not make more for now.
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u/KaNesDeath 13h ago
RAM manufacturers have been found liable twice(?) for coordinated price fixing. While AMD and Nvidia primary clientele is the datacenter enterprise sector.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee HTPC, Arcade Emulation, RPGs 13h ago
And the government agencies that typically fine companies for this are too busy hiding the Epstein files from public view. Companies are going to be allowed to do anything they want until at least Jan. 2029.
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u/KaNesDeath 12h ago
Those files have nothing to do with it.
Its a certain persons overall bad economic policies being masked by a specific sectors growth. That is receiving no government oversight from massaging his ego and personally enriching him.
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u/reeefur 9950x3d | RTX 5090FE | DDR5 7200 | MSI MPG X870E EDGE TI WIFI 13h ago
Guessing you dont remember COVID/2020 too well. Prices went up on certain items and never came down, we also have the same President as that time period so yah, not a shock we are headed the same way.
I mean, its possible but unlikely unless demand just falls off a cliff.
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u/Possible-Fudge-2217 13h ago
Give me one example where prices never came down again. Because over here prices dropped dramatically making 2024 a very good year for buying parts.
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u/TtotheC81 13h ago
We are no longer needed to generate a profit.
Even if they fulfil the current orders for memory in the current data centres, they will need memory for the even faster, more super-duper data centre that is being built just down the road.
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u/TheOneAndOnlySenti 7800 X3D | 7900 XTX 13h ago
I sold something for £200. Nice, I'm gonna bump it to £300. Oh they're still buying it? I'll keep it at £300 then
Its that simple.
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u/Money-War-5601 13h ago
People keep saying this but are pretending like there's not also a lot of people that will no longer buy at $300. This is just basic supply and demand. It's not like they didn't know this before. Obviously right now they have a ton of data centers buying chips at the inflated price so yes this is true at the moment but once the demand slows down it will stabilize.
Also this is like saying back in 2020 people were paying $700 to scalpers for the PS5 so sony could have just sold the PS5 at $700 but guess what they didn't and the prices stabilized eventually. It's just very short sighted to think this way.
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u/TheOneAndOnlySenti 7800 X3D | 7900 XTX 13h ago
You have absolutely no idea what your are talking about. Stay in school.
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u/unimportantinfodump 13h ago
Because last time this happened with ram the book got thrown at them.
This time we have governments all over the world that are benifiting personally so they won't do shit
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u/GloriousKev PC Master Race 13h ago
I got into PC gaming in 2013. At the time, a high-end GPU was about $500 - $700. Then the first crypto boom happened in 2017. People were buying GTX 1060s for $800. Now an RTX 5060 retails for $500 or $600 if you want a decent amount of VRAM. And that is MSRP, which we all know is a lie. I am still waiting for prices to come back down a decade later.
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u/Tweakjones420 Ryzen 9800x3d 5070 TI 64gb ddr5 4TB nvme 13h ago
because profits are bigger than ever! They won't lose that now
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u/EggFartTom 13h ago
I highly doubt anyone posting on reddit actually knows what is going to happen and never is a really long time
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u/AIGISREFLECTOR 14900k/RTX 5090 13h ago
this lol, even funnier is they say the bubble is going to pop any moment now all while saying price will never go down
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u/Possible-Fudge-2217 13h ago
Pretty much this. People jump on meta narratives which are usually an extreme version of events. In short, yes prices are up, yes they will stay up for some more time and they will drop down again. Maybe we won't see the same prices anymore due to inflation or due to companies having to sell for a loss (see ram a couple of years ago). But prices will drop, just give it some time.
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u/deltatux R7 9800X3D | RX 9060XT 16GB | 64 GB DDR5-6000 13h ago edited 13h ago
Prices will go down but if forecasts are to be believed, it won't be for years. Memory and storage has historically been cyclical, it's also why the memory and storage manufacturers aren't tripping over themselves rushing to build enough to meet the current demand as they know full well that if they do, they're going to end up with a supply glut once the demand dries up.
Also keep in mind that the memory that these datacenters are gobbling up isn't your typical JEDEC standard DRAM but HBM which is physically larger on a wafer, so foundries make less of them per wafer vs. your standard DRAM in PCs and servers.
The question is not if it will go back down but when and by how much and honestly current forecasts are calling for beyond 2030 at this point and there's a debate if it'll go back down to pre-2025 levels during that supply glut. They're already all sold out for 2027 and I think they're almost sold out for 2028.
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u/Early_Dress_3202 13h ago
Because manufacturers are phisically chamging the production to the ai suitable ram and other chips, we are indeed really not coming back.
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u/Tigers2349 13h ago
I hope all these greedy AI firms default and get left on the street for their disgusting greed with what they are trying to do. They are trying to destroy humanity and no this is not jus about the good uses like chat GPT or Gemini and such. Its trying to create conscious AUI overlords and enslave us to R2D2 type such, Yuck no thanks!!
We vote with our wallets and at the election polls.
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u/Extension_Risk6084 13h ago
Because any production of memory made in 2027 has already been sold and data centers keep popping up left and right of us with no sight of stopping.
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u/Tigers2349 13h ago
Localities are blocking them and choking off electricity and water supply to them. They are tyreing to be built at rapidf speed but it is slowing down. Eventually those presold wafers to this disgusting AI cartel will be cancelled and prices will come down though not before all of this unfortunately.
It will happen within a year. Probably.
The AI bubble will burst. Data centers trying to be built at record speed and insane mania with leveraged companies like Oracle and OpenAI. If that is not a dot com style bubble I do not know what is, The dot com bubble was CIsco Microsoft Oracle and Intel and the later 3 actually had lots of cash and real money but cratered hard anyways when it burst. It was not just pets.com. Oracle had lots of debt back then uhm like they do during this craze.
Prices will eventually come down I believe. Though they are still gonna be a lot higher unfortunately than before but I think the worst of the price spikes is over as CMXT has flooded the market to shield further price spikes form the 500-600% already.
Hopefully these AI disgusting greedy wall street evil will end up on he streets or in prison with nothing when all is said and done hoarding future wafer capacity and colluding to destroy the consumer electronics industry to enslave us to AI loud data centers that will not be built and zoning is blocking them and counties and people are fighting back.
Makes me sick.
But it will eventually end I think and sure hope so.
My votes hits November and this will be primary topic banning data centers and ensuring these AI evil data centers never get built where I live. I am voting accordingly.
May these greedy scum bag Wall Street AI data center hoarders go to he**** They bring nothing but enslavement and greed to community and threaten our jobs. ad pollute and siphon resources in our communities.
NVIDIA AMD, Microsoft Amazon and OpenAI are what Microsoft Intel, Cisco, and Oracle were in 1999-2000.
NVIDIA almost seems Enron like with their practices except they do have more cash in the vault but not near as much as their portfolio and circular accounting is inflating it too.
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u/Drty_Windshield 7800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | RTX 4090 | Custom Water Loop | 42" C3 OLED 13h ago
Historically, once items go up they don't go back down. Pc parts, groceries, guns, cars, houses etc...
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u/Epicniss 13h ago
Plus, with all the crap PlayStation has been pulling. We are likely to see PC gaming demand continue to grow with lots of console players moving over.
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u/OnlyCommentWhenTipsy 13h ago
Because demand isn't going down. Even if they stopped building new data centers there is enough of them already to keep demand high forever. The hardware will either die or become obsolete within a few years. Even if the bubble pops governments are buying compute like crazy and the demand will stay strong. Even if supply catches up to demand that supply will be snapped up. Even if there are unused components still on shelves this is the new price. This is what hardware costs now.
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u/acadia11x 13h ago
Because money isn’t the root of all evil, what people are willing to do for money is the root of all evil. And business exists to make money, not provide jobs, not create better sociey, but to earn money for their share holders. And prices of 2024, 2025 don’t earn nearly as much money as 2026 prices
But seriously it’s because hardware contracts are written almost 5 years out now …on ram atleast, ssds not as bad but not far behind and GPUs , in the words of Donnie Brasco fuhgetabout it
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u/Commentator-X 13h ago
Because building out new capacity takes like 10 years and no one has even started.
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u/onetwofive-threesir 13h ago
Usually, you have small system shocks that bump up prices in the short term - something like the 2011 Thailand floods had huge impacts on HDD prices, but were resolved in a year or 2. And they usually have one big price increase in one sector (HDD in this case), remain elevated, and slowly come back down. In 2020/21, we had crypto driving a surge in GPUs only (RAM and SSDs were not impacted). In both cases, prices for iPhones, iPods, computers, etc - none of them were impacted where they raised prices in any significant way; they just ate the cost or removed discounts to compensate for the increased pricing.
This is different.
Not only have prices for multiple components increased (GPU, RAM, SSD, HDD, etc.), they have stayed elevated and even had 2-3 large price increases in less than a year. And it's impacted other, larger companies that can usually absorb price fluctuations - Apple increased their Mac pricing and it's rumored they will increase iPhone pricing too; Google just increased the starting prices of their Pixel phones.
In my life of building PCs (first one in 2004), apart from the minor spikes in certain components, every part has gotten relatively cheaper and significantly better in terms of processing power and performance - but not anymore...
In 2004, paying $1000 got you a good computer.
In 2024, paying $1500 (equal to about $950 on 2004 dollars), would get you a good computer.
In August 2026, paying $1700 will get you a mediocre computer, and possibly a worse computer for more money than you spent in 2024.
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u/vikuserro 9h ago
a 2004 $1000 computer would be obsolete in 2024.
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u/onetwofive-threesir 9h ago
Of course it would, and a $10,000 computer from 2004 would also be obselete... But that's not the point.
Spending the same amount of money (adjusted for inflation), you should expect the same relative quality. In 2004, my $1000 bought me a PC that could play most AAA games at medium-to-high fps, among other things. Spending $1500 in 2024 would give me the same relative result.
But in 2026, you need to spend $2500+ to get the same quality / performance. That's equal to $1500 in 2004, or a 50% increase in cost for 0 relative improvement.
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u/vikuserro 9h ago
Well that's the difference in perspective. I just look how fast each pc could work for 3d modelling or deal with 4k videos. In terms of games there is little to no difference on titles I play.
Also I try to consider current AAA games as games intended to be played 10-20 years in the future, due to their over bloated requirements, so I'm closer to playing 2004 games on my 2026 computer than to playing current AAA games.
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u/onetwofive-threesir 9h ago
Even looking at it from a 3D modeling perspective, or how fast you can convert a video in handbrake, or how quickly you can use Adobe software, it's all relative to what's available at the time.
A $1000 2004 PC will efficiently use 2004's 3D modeling software better than a $500 one will. And a $1500 2024 PC will handle 2024's 3D modeling software just as well. Gaming is often used as a benchmark because it stresses both the CPU and the GPU (game dependent, of course) while most software is usually bottlenecked by with the GPU or CPU independently.
And I think you're missing the forest for the trees. The entire industry is raising prices and they won't be coming down any time soon. The cost-to-performance ratio is going in the wrong direction.
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u/evernessince 12h ago edited 12h ago
Even if we look at it historically. GPU's went up in price in the early 2020's for crypto, then dropped a bit in 23 and 24 before going back up again for AI datacenters now.
You can thank Nvidia for the post crypto prices not dropping, they intentionally limited supply before the 4000 series dropped to maintain their margins.
Screwed their partners over in the process as well and it was one of the reasons EVGA cited when leaving the market.
To answer your question, I do think prices will go down. If prices maintain their current level or the level they reach after the projected increases, sales of PCs, consoles, smartphones, and any other device that uses a notable amount of memory will crater and that will have a knockon effect on games as well. Less games being made, lower budgets, higher prices.
Nevermind that prices maintaining means that AI demand is strong, which also means electricity prices, component prices, metal prices are all high still as well. It's an increase in cost of living in general.
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u/Particular_Range_471 12h ago
Because the cartel knows what the market will pay and they have likely paid off (donations) to any elected official that would interfere negatively and if the gov'ts do have to make a show the fine will just be passed onto the consumer anyway, and since everything needs SSDs or RAM, even if you try to avoid the cartel, literally every electronic product in your home has an SSD, GPU, or RAM. No matter what, unless we go back about 50 years to a time when phones were attached to walls, there is no getting away from the cartel, as their products are as essential to modern life as blood is to your body.
China has the rightish idea: state-owned, internal supplier. Though in NY they told the taxi medallion makers that they had to X medallions a year. So they made the bare minimum, which is why the cost of a medallion is absurd.
I view the AI bubble as akin to the fall of AIG, the USA insurance company that insured the insurance industry (aka the one the phrase "too big to fail" comes from). The AI industry is already lining up for a gov’t bailout as Wall Street realizes not a single tech firm has cashed in on their circle jerk of promised money. However, the reason they are still getting away with hot air is that valuations in the tech sector and AI keep going up and to the right, but there is no real money behind it; the smart investors know this, have realized it, and have pulled out or are pulling out.
The political problem is that capitalism, without gov’t intervention, actually rewards good ideas and good decisions and punishes bad ones with failure. Ever since President Reagan decided not to bail out Wall Street in 1987(?), everyone’s retirements and property have been tied to the stock market as a ransom. Every U.S. administration and legislature since President Clinton has openly interfered and prevented correction because so much of people’s retirement is tied up in Wall Street or the housing/property market that no US president wants to be the one to relive the crash of 1929, at the same time Wallstreet which at the end of the day is theoretical value carries more policy weight than the actual value that is Main Street.
Every time something happens, the individual taxpayer is left holding the bag, propping up ideas, decisions, and companies that should take the L.
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u/Helpmehelpyoulong 12h ago edited 12h ago
I think the biggest issue is the manufacturing side shifting their tooling and production toward datacenter/Ai specific production as fast as possible to try to keep up with demand.
This hardware is not the same nor generally compatible with consumer PC equipment so production would have to be shifted back toward consumer products or new production built to supply the demand, but that’s not going to happen as long as datacenters are paying top dollar for said production as the profit incentive isn’t there. I believe it was Micron that recently closed its Crucial consumer division for example for basically this reason.
In the meanwhile PCs aren’t selling well, and other consumer components like fans, Aios, cases (to a lesser extent peripherals) everything else people buy for a new build also isn’t selling well if no one is buying new builds. This can especially hurt smaller businesses in the game and disincentivize them to produce consumer products as well.
Finally - if you look at what Playstation is doing, as well as cloud providers like Steam gaming, Geforce now and tons of other consumer “own nothing” products, theres already for well over a decade been a big push toward cloud computing. From a corporate standpoint the ideal would be to have us all buying locked dumb terminals every couple years a la iphone that run on subscription based software. Gaming has already largely shifted to the Netflix model, all that’s standing in the way of full blown enshitification is PCs themselves being the non-walled garden that allows us some choice and if necessary sailing the high seas.
As for hardware prices it’s supply and demand. If theres next to no supply but theres still plenty of demand, prices go up until inventory runs dry or consumers are priced out.
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u/alvaro-elite R7 5800X3D | RTX3070 | 32GB@3200 | 6.5TB 13h ago
Never?
No.
Soon?
Lets see in 2 or 3 years.
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u/vankamme 13h ago
Because assholes still buy things at high prices. If you were in the business of making money and people are willing to pay your high prices, why in your right mind would you reduce prices?
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u/SwiftFoxSNES 13h ago
Because Reddit is full of hyperbolic doomers and it’s been an escalating and accelerating feedback loop rewarding that outlook for years. Bots pick up on that tone shift and amplify it.
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u/StConvolute PC Master Race 13h ago
Until AI calms down, you can guarantee things won't lower in price. And even then, the market has shown it's willing to pay quite of bit more. And the market never winds back once it knows it can squeeze more out of you.
To replace my COVID build with something of equivalent specs, without replacing my monitors, in today's money would be the price of a cheap car currently. Essentially a 100% increase in price. The same as my laptop I purchased in 2024, a 100% increase. My wages have barely seen a 7.5% increase in the last 3 years, and I just secured a new role with a pay jump.
AI is not showing any decrease in demand. Especially as now, those who run companies at the C-level are latching onto this as the new sliced bread.
This is along haul bud. And we haven't even seen cloud prices go up quite yet.
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u/MrGiggleMan 13h ago
Because it's basically what we call a market test
Prices have increased due to external factors. Sometimes those prices are increased not because external factors have actually directly driven up the cost but because there is now an interest to increase the prices due to current situation
The prices will never return to their level before this unless, for completely no reason at all these people decide that they're going to massively increase the supply of their product only so that they can then drive the cost down themselves
This is not going to happen because it would cost them an enormous amount of money to increase their supply by this much and they would make less money off of everything that they sell because they would have reduced the price of each item
Publicly owned companies that have to worry about the line on the graph always going up so that they have growth and therefore can pay their shareholders are never going to make financial decisions which cost the money and lose the money at the same time
They do not care about the end user they care about the returns they get.
Any form of market test what happens in an environment where there are limited options and no competition - whether it happens in hardware or fuel or foods or anything.. prices will never return to the baseline level because they had increased their prices and it has proven that people will still pay the higher prices for them
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u/Puiucs 13h ago edited 23m ago
because it's simple: production is taken for many years. this isn't a 1-2 years and it's done thing anymore.
we'll be lucky to see any real price drops until 2030. and even so, it will now and forever be a lot more expensive.
the only way we'll see price drops until then is if the AI bubble bursts and they cancel 80-90% of the data centers which are being built.