PC Partner, the company behind Zotac, Inno3D, and Manli brands, has warned about a potential worsening of entry-level GPU supply in the second half of 2026. The company blames this increase on the ongoing memory shortages and supply constraints that are already heavily affecting other market segments.
As demand for AI datacentre hardware keeps pushing DRAM prices upwards, graphics cards have seen their manufacturing costs and retail prices jump to unprecedented levels, pushing previously accessible models outside the reach of many customers. While entry-level GPUs have remained somewhat shielded from this situation, due to their lower memory requirements, this situation may change soon according to PC Partner.
In its latest financial report, the company stated that “the PC market remains highly challenging, with significant supply constraints driving sharp increases in component costs and, in turn, slowing consumer demand for the PC market.” As a result, PC Partner expects availability of graphics cards to decline further in the second half of 2026. As if this wasn’t bad enough for gamers on tight budgets, the firm says that “entry-level VGA cards are expected to face even more severe shortages, which could further drive the average selling price (ASP) up.”
Many graphics card makers have already implemented multiple price hikes this year in an attempt to adjust for memory costs. As such, this is likely to be just one among other future increases, pushing entry-level GPUs further away into mid-range territories.
According to this report, these shortages have already impacted PC Partner’s revenue from its subsidiaries: Zotac, Inno3D, and Manli, whose revenue dropped by 9.2% year-over-year. While the average selling price has increased by 10.7%, unit sales fell by 18.4%, as fewer customers can stomach these price hikes.
But that’s not all. PC Partner has also indicated that sales of other PC-related products and components decreased by 20.1%. The company’s mini PCs are the most impacted, as lead times widen, and key component availability contracts.
Considering that we’re already deep into the second half of 2026, we may be witnessing the last affordable graphics cards on the market in this generation. With entry-level GPUs already priced above their official MSRPs, any further increases risk putting them outside the reach of tight budgets.
