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You're probably already well aware of the effects of the AI-fuelled surge in demand for flash memory products, which have pushed up consumer prices for RAM, SSDs, video cards and PCs. What you might not have heard is a new report from Board Channels, a Chinese discussion forum, which suggests that major motherboard vendors are set to increase prices themselves amidst rising manufacturing costs and waning demand.
The companies mentioned in the report include three big names familiar to Western PC builders: Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. According to a machine-translated version of the report published by Videocardz (see image below), all three of these Taiwanese firms are "highly likely to implement a new round of price increases in Q3 2026" in order to maintain their margins.
As Videocardz points out, there have been few CPU launches of note this year - AMD has focused on refreshed products such as the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, which we reviewed, and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D Anniversary Edition, which we did not. On the Intel side of things, the Core Ultra 200 series saw improved Plus models earlier this year, but no new models are expected until the company launches a whole new motherboard platform in early 2027.
With that in mind, raising motherboard prices will further depress what is already a clinical market, given how much other component prices have risen in the past nine months. It's simply not a great time to be a PC builder, whether as a DIY individual or a company selling desktops by the truckload.
If you're one of the few in the market for a motherboard then, buying sooner rather than later might make some sense.