Acer Chairman and CEO Jason Chen says PC prices could rise by another 5% to 20% in the fourth quarter of 2026, according to Taiwan’s Economic Daily News. Chen reportedly said that DDR4 and DDR5 memory are no longer in short supply and that CPU supply is mostly fine, with only some low-end and mid-range chips still tight. Prices haven’t followed this change, though. Memory and SSD costs are still high, so systems with more RAM or storage will probably see bigger increases. Chen expects the average selling price of PCs to peak around mid-2027, with a possible drop in the second half of that year.
Even if component costs fall earlier, it takes several months for cheaper parts to reach finished PCs. Chen also reportedly said suppliers keep pushing through price increases, some of which he considers hard to justify. He also pointed to expanding Chinese memory production, and by the sound of it, he doesn’t think the shortage can run until 2030, as many in the industry have claimed. That capacity is still ramping up, though. Chinese giant CXMT is reportedly preparing to enter the NAND flash market with an R&D line, and YMTC is expanding with new fabs.
Buyers should expect a rough near term regardless. TrendForce expects DRAM contract prices to rise 13% to 18% in Q3 2026, and NAND by 10% to 15%. AMD is also reportedly planning a 10% increase on GPUs and chipsets, and it’s still unclear whether Ryzen CPUs will be included. If Chen is right, cheaper PCs are probably more than a year away. With these comments in mind, if you were planning a new system or upgrade, buying before Q4 pricing kicks in is probably the safer bet.