Sales of PC motherboards are expected to fall 25%+ YoY in 2026, as PC users delay their upgrades amid AI-driven price surges for memory, storage, and processors
Fewer people are buying parts and building new PCs from scratch. … Motherboard sales are now collapsing amid unprecedented shortages fueled …
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PC Motherboard Sales Set to Crater 25%+ in 2026
AI-fueled component price hikes are pushing PC builders to shelve upgrade plans, hammering motherboard demand.
The DIY PC market is in serious trouble. Motherboard sales are projected to plunge more than 25% year-over-year in 2026 as builders hit the brakes on new rigs and upgrades.
The culprit? AI. Surging demand for artificial intelligence workloads has driven up prices across memory, storage, and processors — the core components every PC build depends on. With parts getting more expensive across the board, consumers are simply choosing to wait it out.
Fewer people are building from scratch, and the ripple effects are hitting motherboard makers hard. The market is dealing with what's being described as unprecedented shortages tied directly to the AI boom's appetite for silicon and memory.
It's a brutal irony: the same AI wave making tech headlines is quietly strangling the hobbyist PC market that helped build the industry in the first place.