Motherboard sales are currently falling dramatically due to major shortages caused by the booming AI industry. This has pushed up prices for many key PC parts over the last six months, especially memory and storage drives. Now, chipmakers like Nvidia, Intel, and AMD are making the problem worse by reducing consumer chip production to focus on manufacturing more AI processors. The massive growth of AI infrastructure is also causing shortages for Intel and AMD CPUs (and even high-end Macs), especially as interest in “agentic AI” explodes.
Because of these issues, people who don’t have a lot of money to spend are delaying PC upgrades and keeping their current devices longer. Motherboard makers have started to feel the impact of these postponed purchases, with Digitimes reporting that the four biggest companies are lowering their sales targets.
Asus, which sold 15 million motherboards in 2025, has only shipped a little over 5 million in the first half of 2026. The company will likely struggle to even reach 10 million units by the end of the year, a 33% drop in sales compared to last year. Gigabyte and MSI sold 11.5 million and 11 million motherboards last year, respectively. However, both companies have revised their sales predictions for 2026 to 9 million for Gigabyte and 8.4 million for MSI, marking a 22% drop for Gigabyte and a 24% drop for MSI.
ASRock will be hit hardest by this situation, with its shipments expected to fall by 37%, from 4.3 million in 2025 to just 2.7 million by the end of the year. For these four major manufacturers, this means a 28% contraction in the overall motherboard market.
The huge demand for memory, storage, and processors for AI is the main reason for this drop in motherboard sales. Shortages caused by these massive AI purchases have forced PC builders and enthusiasts to compete for fewer available PC components, leading to higher prices across the board.
Besides this, AMD continues to use the AM5 socket for its latest processors, while Intel’s Nova Lake, which will reportedly use LGA 1954, won’t be available until later this year. The situation is further complicated by Nvidia not releasing a refreshed RTX 50 Super series this year, and rumors suggest the RTX 60 series won’t debut until 2028. This combination of factors is discouraging PC builders from upgrading their current systems.
Despite this drop in sales, these companies are not exactly struggling. Asus, Gigabyte, and ASRock have shifted some of their production to AI servers, allowing them to capture some of the massive investments that big tech companies are pouring into their data centers. But if you’re planning to build a completely new PC from scratch, you might find good deals on motherboard combos. Retailers are eager to move their inventory. While these discounts might not be enough to balance out the higher costs of memory, storage, and to some extent, processors, they will at least save you a few dollars as you navigate the current chip crisis.
