Budget graphics cards are getting more expensive, and the unit-sales data tells a different story

PC Partner, the Hong Kong-listed contract manufacturer behind most of the add-in-board graphics cards sold under the Sapphire, Zotac, Inno3D, and Manli brands, told investors in its H1 FY2026 results that graphics card costs and availability will worsen in the second half, with budget cards taking the biggest hit. Two weeks later, the independent graphics analyst Jon Peddie released his own Q1 2026 numbers. The two accounts disagree by a factor of almost three, and that gap is the story.

PC Partner's position is the one buyers are about to hear in retailer press releases for the next six months. Memory costs, the company says, are rising. The supply of entry-level VGA cards will tighten further. The result, as reported by Tom's Hardware, is that average selling prices for budget cards will "further drive... upward" through H2 FY2026. Videocardz and Notebookcheck carry the manufacturer-side warning in parallel.

Jon Peddie, who runs the long-standing graphics-industry research firm Jon Peddie Research, sees the same market from the other direction. His firm tracks add-in-board sales directly from retailer point-of-sale data. In Q1 2025, the market shipped about 9.25 million discrete graphics cards. In Q1 2026, the comparable figure is about 11.82 million. That is a 28% jump in units year over year. (Jon Peddie Research is the source of record; Tom's Hardware summarizes the comparison.)

Units up 28% is, on its own, a healthy market. The number that breaks the shortage story is the dollar line. The same Q1 2026 window saw add-in-board retail revenue rise from $6.18 billion to $10.85 billion, a 76% jump year over year. The 28% increase in units and the 76% increase in dollars are not the same number. The dollar growth is roughly 2.7 times the unit growth.

That 2.7x gap is where Peddie's reading diverges from PC Partner's. Memory costs have gone up, and the AIB channel is paying more for the GDDR memory that goes on a graphics card. But a memory cost increase on a $200 to $300 entry-level card, even a steep one, does not by itself explain retail dollars growing 2.7 times as fast as units sold. Peddie's view, reported by Tom's Hardware, is that some of the increase is "beyond memory costs," meaning AIB makers are capturing margin on top of the component pass-through rather than absorbing it.

The dispute, not the warning, is the story. PC Partner's H2 statement is a single-source corporate forecast; the JPR numbers are the independent counterweight released within days.

PC Partner's read has weight: it is one of the largest contract AIB makers in the world, and its brands collectively account for a substantial share of the discrete-GPU shelf at retail. When it says memory costs are pushing up its bill of materials, that is not a retailer's marketing line; it is a manufacturer with P&L exposure to the price of GDDR. The H2 FY2026 warning is also forward-looking, and the company has more visibility into its own order book than any independent tracker does.

JPR's data has a different limit. The retail point-of-sale feed is the cleanest independent reading of the consumer market, but it does not capture the largest single AIB customer: the hyperscalers and AI labs buying data-center accelerators. Those dollars flow through a different channel entirely, and the AIB shipment figures the analyst reports do not include them. To the extent that AI demand is pulling the same upstream component supply that budget cards depend on, the retail data shows the symptom (rising prices) but not the cause (where the supply is going).

A buyer planning a budget or mid-range discrete GPU purchase in H2 2026 is being told prices will rise. The unit-sales numbers from JPR tell a different story: shipments are up 28% year over year, not down. The dollar line tells an even sharper one. The 2.7x gap between unit growth and revenue growth is what to watch in the next JPR quarter. If memory costs keep rising and the gap narrows, PC Partner's read is right and pass-through is the story. If the gap stays wide or widens, the analyst is closer to the truth and the budget-card hike is carrying margin, not just memory.

PC Partner's H2 FY2026 financial calendar and JPR's Q2 2026 retail report will both land before the end of the year. The two numbers to compare are units and dollars, not the company press release.