- AMD’s David McAfee was interviewed at CES 2026
- The exec said that the RAM crisis won’t affect stock of Radeon GPUs
- McAfee wouldn’t rule out price hikes, and in fact hinted they were pretty much inevitable – but if they happen, any cost increase should be modest
An AMD exec has assured PC gamers that there won’t be stock shortages of its Radeon graphics cards due to the RAM crisis, but there can be no guarantee that pricing for these GPUs won’t rise.
David McAfee, who is Corporate VP of the 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 pertains to VRAM.
TweakTown raised the issue of the current huge RAM price hikes, and how they might affect AMD’s GPUs in terms of cost, or certain models being ‘put on hold’ due to supply or production difficulties around securing VRAM (all this is happening against the notable backdrop of a bunch of rumors around AMD Radeon price hikes, and speculation that some more affordable GPUs could be ditched by Team Red).
McAfee said: “As we look at it, we’ve got very long-term deep partnerships with all of the DRAM manufacturers to make sure that our needs are met in terms of DRAM supply for our [Radeon] GPUs, to make sure that we’re building what gamers need.”
He continued: “From that point of view, I’m not concerned that current constraints will lead to a shortage of GPUs in the market. I think we’ve got long enough, deep enough, and strategic enough partnerships, and that’s a critical problem that we’re working with those partners day in and day out.”
So, McAfee seems confident that AMD isn’t going to stumble in terms of procuring VRAM, or having enough to maintain production volumes for Radeon graphics cards going forward. There’s certainly no talk of ditching budget models, of course.
However, TweakTown then touched on the subject of price, where the news wasn’t quite so positive.
McAfee prefaced the catch here by noting that AMD is going to do everything it can to fight price hikes for its GPUs, saying: “Our value proposition with Radeon is delivering end users more for their money, and as things change in the market, we want to make sure that we continue to do that and deliver the best performance per dollar that we can to gamers. Even in spite of increasing component costs, we’re going to drive that as aggressively as we possibly can. To make sure we’re maximizing the performance per dollar.”
However, then came the sting in the tail, with McAfee adding: “I’m not going to say prices across all these components will remain flat. I think inevitably, something’s going to happen. And we’re trying 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 exec is saying that AMD is in a good position supply-wise for VRAM, and will try to do everything to mitigate any price hikes for Radeon GPUs to ensure the value proposition of these products is maintained.
However, on the other hand, McAfee notably refuses to say that there won’t be any price hikes, and moreover, indicates that it’s inevitable that “something’s going to happen” on this front.
The upshot, then, would appear to be that some price increases are very likely to happen, but they will hopefully be relatively contained and modest – and stock issues shouldn’t compound them.
Of course, this is just a prediction, albeit from somebody inside AMD who is in a very good position to make that assertion (though equally, he’s obviously someone who needs to talk up Radeon products, too). How the memory crisis is going to unfold throughout 2026 – and quite possibly beyond – will be key, and nobody really knows how it’s going to play out longer-term yet.
Short-term, RAM price rises have been a massive shock, and not one that’s going to fade anytime soon. Some forecasts suggest we won’t be going back to normal with system RAM or VRAM prices this year, and things won’t start to normalize until 2027 – and others even foresee a rocky road for RAM through to 2028.
Elsewhere at CES 2026, other AMD execs have been drawn to talk about the RAM crisis, and another noteworthy report comes from Tom’s Hardware.
Our sister site spoke to another (Senior) VP at AMD, Rahul Tikoo, who said about the RAM crisis: “I think that people who need the technology [a PC] need the technology, and they’re going to buy the technology – though consumers might decide that they have a choice to make on how much memory, what CPU,” and that “consumers have a wide assortment of choice available for all kinds of price points that they can buy for this coming year”.
The long and short of it is that people who must buy a PC this year are going to have to eat the cost of more expensive RAM – that’s just a fact – and either compromise by having a lesser quantity of system memory, or by cutting corners elsewhere. Which is what Tikoo’s reference to the choice of CPU is about: buying a cheaper processor than intended to save money which can then be put towards affording that pricier RAM.
Tikoo isn’t suggesting this is an ideal scenario, but just that if people must buy a PC this year, in this climate of rising costs, there are options – although the unspoken suggestion is that they’d probably be better off waiting if they have the choice.
However, for those who aren’t trying to build or buy a PC, and just want to upgrade their graphics card, the news is more positive for would-be Radeon owners. Mostly, anyway, although as noted, some price hikes are still likely in this case, but hopefully they’ll be minor bumps, and certainly nothing like what we’ve seen with RAM (which has been ludicrous, frankly).
More broadly, AMD appears to be well braced to weather the RAM storm this year, at least going by the various comments from its top brass at CES.
The best graphics cards for all budgets
TechRadar will be extensively covering this year’s CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2026 live news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything we’ve seen.
You can also ask us a question about the show in our CES 2026 live Q&A and we’ll do our best to answer it.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok for the latest from the CES show floor!
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/qaSxwoPXXR4svpYsjGtAWn-2000-80.jpg
Source link
