NVIDIA Reportedly Stops Supplying VRAM Alongside GPU Chips To AIB Makers As Memory Shortage Intensifies

It looks like the recent DRAM shortage induced by the ever-hungry AI industry was bad enough that NVIDIA, also the biggest beneficiary of this AI gold rush, has reportedly stopped providing VRAM (DRAM) chips to AIB makers as a bundle for its GPU silicon, according to leaker Golden Pig Upgrade.

NVIDIA AIBs Have A New Problem To Deal With

Effectively, AIB makers now have to source the memory modules themselves, made no easier by the fact that memory supply is incredibly constrained which caused the market price for RAM kits to surge several times over the pricing just weeks prior. While on paper this looks like NVIDIA simply passes the responsibility of material sourcing to AIBs – which sounds like more freedom for companies to pick their options – the reality of it is that the DRAM price surge has gotten so out of control that even the five-trillion-dollar company is unable to stomach the prices.

This have significant implications on smaller companies. As the leaker alleges, smaller AIB partners have no direct business connections to memory makers like Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and these three companies are definitely more than happy to re-allocate their existing production capacity to the high-margin AI datacenters, leaving the crumbs for GPU AIBs to fight for. It’s also worth pointing out that smaller AIB makers can’t go for lower-quality dies to save money either, as NVIDIA has strict requirements on what is allowed to be used on its chips.

Larger brands like ASUS and MSI (which also helps NVIDIA produce datacenter modules) might have better chances at securing allocation, but smaller ones will be starved of DRAM supply and have their production effectively grounded to a halt. That’s pretty much death sentence for their GPU businesses, which EVGA found out years ago. It’s hard to say how long the DRAM shortage is going to last – if it’s more than several months, there is a genuine risk that we may see several AIB companies calling it quits altogether.

Pokdepinion: It’s going to be a long winter in the DIY PC industry.