- According to Digitimes, the RAM crisis has caused a crisis in motherboard manufacturers
- Digitimes report suggests motherboard shipments have plummeted for four major Taiwanese manufacturers
- Consumers no longer have the incentive to buy motherboards for new versions of PCs because RAM kits are unaffordable.
The rise of AI and ongoing economic struggles continue to leave the PC hardware market in disarray, and a recent development suggests things are only getting worse.
As PC Gamer reports, a new report from Digitimes indicates a ‘collapse’ for motherboard manufacturers and their shipping targets for 2026, due to the memory crisis.
Unsurprisingly, RAM shortages and price increases have discouraged consumers from building new PCs, which has the knock-on effect of leaving motherboards on the shelves.
Notably, the report claims that Asus is among the top four Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers that reduced their shipping targets by the end of 2025 and has still seen a collapse in shipments. It also claims that Asus only managed to ship 5 million motherboards in the first half of 2026, despite targeting 10 million in total.
Frankly, those numbers are considered some of the worst for Asus, as they are said to mark the “lowest point in Asus motherboard shipments since the company split in 2008”, and also worse than the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A similar case applies to MSI, which supposedly estimated 11 million motherboard shipments, but fell to 8.4 million by 2026.
Yes, these cases don’t directly affect consumers, especially given the lack of incentive to buy motherboards (which is part of the problem, but not the blame), but in theory, poor motherboard sales could cause a drop in production for major manufacturers.
If the RAM crisis dissolves, there will likely be a sudden demand for motherboards whose production has been discontinued, ultimately leading to skyrocketing prices and shortages. It is quite evident that the rise of AI has caused immense damage to the PC hardware market, but we can only hope that it is not irreparable.
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