CES 2026 proved the PC industry is hosed this year
Engadget••business
Key Points:
- Dell's new XPS 14 and XPS 16 laptops have seen significant price increases, now starting at $2,050 and $2,200 respectively, largely due to rising RAM costs driven by AI datacenter demand.
- AMD predicts that many PC users will opt for piecemeal upgrades rather than full system replacements in 2026, benefiting from the longevity of AM4 and AM5 platforms that allow CPU upgrades without new RAM or motherboards.
- RAM prices have surged dramatically due to high demand from AI supercomputers, such as NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin and AMD’s Helios AI racks, which require massive amounts of memory to support AI model training and inference.
- Industry insiders expect semiconductor supply issues and elevated
