FridayMay 8th 2026
PC Motherboard Sales Face Sharp 25%+ Decline Amid Weak Demand
PC motherboard sales are on track for some of the biggest corrections in recent times as manufacturers struggle with weak demandaccording to a DigiTimes report. What began as AI data center expansion quickly started affecting consumer PC DIY endeavorsas severe silicon shortages across the industry drove DRAM and CPU demand so high that prices have increased significantly for DDR4 and DDR5 memory kitswhile regular CPUs have also seen a large price increase. In responsePC motherboard makers are caught in the middle of this shortageseeing their motherboard unit sales revised down significantly. The report notes that all Taiwanese motherboard makers have significantly lowered their 2026 shipment targetswith some experiencing more than a 25% decrease in projected unit sales.
Interestinglyit's not only CPU and memory shortages driving this lowered demand; there are indications that consumers have slowed down their NVIDIA GPU upgrade cycleswhich is impacting new motherboard sales. Particularly with the "Blackwell" GPU generationconsumers began purchasing PCIe 5.0 motherboards to achieve the greatest performance increase. Howeveras these GPUs became rarer and more expensive due to the global DRAM shortageconsumers have become reluctant to upgrade. ASUS is projected to sell about 10 million motherboards in 2026while MSI and GIGABYTE are now projecting sales of less than 10 million units each. This represents about a 25% yearly decrease from 2025 sales. The worst position is estimated for ASRockwhich is expected to see a 30% decrease according to the report.
Adding to the complexity of the situationthe economics of building PCs have changed completely since memory prices increasedwith DRAM kits now accounting for over 30% of PC costs. In the DIY PC sectorthe shortage of AMD and Intel CPUs has also impacted PC builders' chances of buying new motherboardsleaving uncertainty about when the overall supply chain will start to ease. Consumers are pulling back from making major upgrades in these market conditionsso gaming PCs will likely take a significant hit in the coming months. Even AMD's CEODr. Lisa Sunoted that gaming demand will decline in the second half of the yearleaving little positive outlook for the grim state of the PC DIY market.
Source:
DigiTimes
Interestinglyit's not only CPU and memory shortages driving this lowered demand; there are indications that consumers have slowed down their NVIDIA GPU upgrade cycleswhich is impacting new motherboard sales. Particularly with the "Blackwell" GPU generationconsumers began purchasing PCIe 5.0 motherboards to achieve the greatest performance increase. Howeveras these GPUs became rarer and more expensive due to the global DRAM shortageconsumers have become reluctant to upgrade. ASUS is projected to sell about 10 million motherboards in 2026while MSI and GIGABYTE are now projecting sales of less than 10 million units each. This represents about a 25% yearly decrease from 2025 sales. The worst position is estimated for ASRockwhich is expected to see a 30% decrease according to the report.
60 Comments on PC Motherboard Sales Face Sharp 25%+ Decline Amid Weak Demand
Imagine my shock!
RX 8600 XTRX 9060 XT and Ryzen 5700X3D eliminated my need for a new board. I have enough performance and this GPU actually has 16 PCIe lanes so it has acceptable performance on PCIe gen 3.I would love to have a gen 5 SSD though. And at some point I'd like the 96 GB of RAM on 2 DIMMs that a new platform supportsso I can run bigger LLMs but still have low latency RAM for games. And I'd need like a 32 GB GPU to take advantage of that. Now's not a great time to buy all that.
On an asidethe reason I want a gen 5 SSD is that the SSD magic wore off. A few years ago software was optimized for slow hard drives and that software loaded fast on an SSD. Now software targets SSDs which means games take forever to launch again.
What I have been speccing out has been majority used parts I bought before prices went ape factor 10.
www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/amd/earnings. Made a big deal on the stock market a few days ago
However... Look at both quarterly and yearly earnings.
I only deal with NET profits and only NET profits. And even with all of this AI Bullsh!t AMD net profits are meh IMHO.
I respect those who are still on am4.
My two most frequently used systems are my AM4 B550 system and my LGA1700 B760 system.
The B550 system; really all I want is 128GB of RAM for running local ML nonsense (the current 64GB would then go to the B760 system). A 5800X3D would be nicebut realistically this system does everything I need it to already.
The B760 system; I want to upgrade the RAM to 64GB (as mentioned) and the boot drive to a 2TB gen 4 drive. I would more likely end up getting a new boot drive for the B550 system and then the old one would go to the B760.
But not at current prices. I'll wait until they (hopefully) return to sanity. Until thenboth systems are fine.
As for a 32GB GPUR9700 Pro is a decent buy provided you can get it for MSRP.
Of course I also have enough DDR 4 to lastmost of it being B die stuff too but had to buy larger capacity sticks after that because I just knew at the time future RAM purchases would be way more expensive if I didn't - And I was right about that. I'm glad I moved on it when I did because I needed larger capacity sticks when I did and that was right before prices started going up like they did.
I don't have any 5 series CPU's but this one is running a Ryzen 5 Pro 4650GE which works just fine as isso nothing to worry about for me at least - Except maybe a little more DDR4 around coudn't hurt of course.
It's like offer and demand of PC components has became like oil market: when the slightest constraint may seem to appear prices climb up to the roof very quicklybut when demand falls the price update button doesn't work anymore.
AMD expects 20% decline in gaming revenue
GFN has already seen a lot of this enshittification with time limits and price hikes
This happens time and time again in all sorts of different industries.