60% of PC Gamers Have No Plans to Build a New PC as AI Drives Component Prices Sky-High

The Survey: Six in Ten Won't Build

A new Tom's Hardware survey reveals that 60% of PC gamers have no plans to build a new computer within the next two years. The culprit is a dramatic price surge in PC components driven by AI infrastructure demand that has effectively priced out much of the enthusiast market.

Component Prices Have Skyrocketed

The numbers tell a stark story. One community member shared that a PC they built three years ago would cost ,500 more to replicate today. DDR5 RAM prices illustrate the problem clearly: 32GB kits that cost around €120 just months ago now run €450—a nearly 4x increase. The RTX 5080 GPU followed a similar trajectory, jumping from roughly €900 at launch to a minimum of €1,200 on the current market.

AI Infrastructure is Cannibalizing Consumer Markets

The root cause is the insatiable demand from AI data centers. Memory manufacturers have pivoted toward HBM production for AI servers, constraining consumer DRAM supply. On the GPU side, AI inference demand is competing directly with gaming for available silicon. This double pressure has made upgrades financially unviable for a significant portion of the gaming population.

The community's most upvoted response said it plainly: "Have no plans = can't afford to." What was once a voluntary upgrade cycle for enthusiasts has become a forced pause for many.

Outlook

As long as the AI boom continues, relief for PC component pricing looks unlikely. The structural shift toward high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators is not a short-term phenomenon. For the PC gaming hardware market, the next two years could represent a significant trough in upgrade activity.