Please note that this post is tagged as a rumor .
It looks like GPU price hikes are just about to start
According to the post Board Channels, board partners (AIBs) are being prepped for price increases tied to rising DRAM costs. The first wave may land between January and February 2026, depending on the brand.
The post explains why we have not seen any major price increase until now, despite numerous reports. Basically, it is based on quarter timing and contract pricing. NVIDIA’s 2025 Q4 spans November to January, while AMD’s 2025 Q4 spans October to December. Under prior supply agreements, memory procurement prices were said to be fixed through 2025, so AIB pricing was not forced higher in Q4. Starting in 2026, those fixed terms end, and the post expects memory pricing pressure to show up in GPU costs.
AMD GPUs for AIB brands may see earlier price increases starting in January, followed by multiple increases over the next few months. NVIDIA GPUs for AIC brands are expected to start increasing in February. In December, some brands made small increases while others did not. Whether each brand enforces a price increase in January will be decided by the AIC vendors themselves.
— Board Channels (translation)
Based on that timeline, the post expects AMD-related increases to start as early as January 2026, with more than one round possible in the months after. For NVIDIA, it points to February 2026 as the key timing, with some brands already moving pricing in December while others did not. It also claims the exact timing in January can be decided by AIBs, so changes may roll out unevenly by vendor and model.
The writing was on a wall already, and even board partners representatives mentioned the start of 2026 as a tipping point. Prices have already moved in some regions, but this report describes those as AIB-led market adjustments rather than a direct NVIDIA-driven change. If the claimed official notices arrive in early 2026, the concern is that street prices will step up again on top of the current increases.
I have included Intel GPUs in the header image, but as far as I can tell, no rumor is mentioning Intel GPUs specifically. However, since their GPUs use GDDR6 memory, it is more than sure they will also be affected.
Source: Board Channels
