AMD is fighting to "maintain prices" for its graphics cards despite VRAM shortage, but I'll believe it when I see it

AMD is working with its board partners to try to ensure that graphics cards “maintain prices close to what [the company] suggests,” according to a new report. That’s despite ongoing shortages and huge price hikes in the DRAM and VRAM space that are putting a massive strain on the graphics card industry, both in terms of supply and pricing. It’s far from a guarantee that AMD GPUs are likely to be available at close to MSRP for the foreseeable future, but it’s perhaps the thinnest sliver of hope that there might be some reasonably priced upgrades available this year.

With AMD currently not having an answer to the two best graphics card options in the world – the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 – the overall graphics card pricing and shortage situation could be a chance for it to snatch a little bit of market share from Nvidia, especially given recent reports of Nvidia slashing its GPU supply. However, with the likes of the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 having been notoriously overpriced since launch, I’m not getting my hopes up just yet.

This report comes from tech site Gizmodo, which spoke to AMD’s VP for Ryzen CPUs, David McAfee. During a wide-ranging interview that covered the company’s CPU strategy, the future of FSR Redstone, and more, McAfee was asked about the current graphics card situation.

“We have very strategic partnerships over many, many years with all the DRAM manufacturers to make sure that both the amount of supply that we need and the economics of what we’re able to buy from them are what we can support in our graphics business,” he says.

Gizmodo goes on to report that “the Ryzen lead admitted that he can’t predict the future. He added that AMD was trying to work with the AIC (add-in card) manufacturers to maintain prices close to what AMD suggests.”

However, McAfee further comments that, “Without the memory at the right price, building graphics cards with our add-in-board partners that hit the right price and market, that’s tough math to put together.”

So, we’re a long way from AMD even suggesting that we’ll see a steady stream of RX 9000 cards at close to MSRP. However, if it can at all push the pricing needle towards ‘sensible’ over the coming months, I’ll certainly welcome the move.