Following in the wake of rising memory prices, rumours now claim that CPU coolers and power supplies will also become more expensive in 2026. While demands from AI datacentres are partly to blame for this potential rise in cost, there are other market forces at work too.
This rumour comes by way of Videocardz, who received a screenshot of a letter from the Guangzhou Xinhongzheng Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (GXETC Ltd.), addressed to agents. In which, the company outlines the price of raw materials has risen sharply, pushing manufacturing costs up.
As a result of these market conditions, upstream suppliers have stopped accepting new orders at previously agreed prices as of January 6. This in turn leads GXETC Ltd. to believe that the cost of power supplies will rise by 6-10%, with CPU coolers similarly following suit at 6-8%.
Regardless of their intended recipient, data centre or consumer, all components naturally require raw materials. As manufacturers continue to upscale production to meet the demand of enterprise markets, particularly when it comes to memory, it’s only natural that the necessary metals would increase in price.
However, copper in particular is in short supply. As Yahoo! Finance details, mining regions have faced supply challenges as well as natural disasters that have reduced the amount of raw materials they expected to bring to market. Yet another perfect storm.
This change hasn’t yet manifested within the consumer market, but could become more readily apparent after February 1. This date will mark the end of all promotional pricing behind the scenes, driving “more than 90% of items” to increase on top of original unit price, according to GXETC Ltd..
Videocardz states that it was unable to independently verify these claims, nor was it able to establish the extent to which GXETC Ltd. connects to larger cooling brands. As such, it’s unclear how much of an wide-reaching effect these changes will have.. Regardless, I’m confident all parties in this market are feeling this squeeze to varying degrees.
In any case, 2026 is shaping up to be an expensive year to build any kind of PC. On top of these alleged price increases, the cost of GPUs could rise and there’s no sign of the DRAM shortage coming to an end. We’re now at the point where some manufacturers are seriously considering reviving older products, such as AMD with its AM4 CPUs, to provide consumers with something they can use and/or afford.
If you’re hungry for an upgrade for your ageing system, check out Ben’s recommendations on the best DDR4 CPUs and motherboards. For those of you in the market for a new rig altogether, my advice is to weigh up the cost of individual components relative to prebuilds, as some system integrators still provide solid bang for your buck.
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