If you thought 2026 was going to be the year PC building finally got easy again, AMD has some bad news. The company is heading into the new year facing a perfect storm of supply chain headaches and skyrocketing prices. In a candid chat with Gizmodo during CES, AMD’s Ryzen lead David McAfee laid out the situation, and honestly, it sounds like they are trying to steer a ship through a hurricane without losing any cargo.
The hardware they showed off at CES tells the story better than any press release could. They revealed the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D and some beefed-up Strix Halo APUs, specifically the Ryzen AI Max+ 388 and 382. On paper, these look solid for future laptops or handhelds. But if you look closer, there is a catch: these new chips are still running on the older RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture. They aren’t getting the shiny new graphical tech just yet. Even McAfee admitted that the jump in performance from the previous 9800X3D to this new 9850X3D is going to be pretty minor – mostly noticeable if you are grinding esports titles or older games. It feels less like a revolution and more like they are just keeping the lights on while they wait for the storm to pass.
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And the storm is real
The biggest problem isn’t even the chips themselves; it’s the memory. DDR5 prices have gone absolute bonkers, jumping by nearly 500% in some cases. It is terrifying to think about what that does to the cost of a new gaming rig. Since AMD doesn’t really have a direct competitor to Nvidia’s monster RTX 5080 or 5090 cards right now, their whole strategy relies on being the “good value” option with cards like the Radeon RX 9070. But that value proposition falls apart if you have to spend a fortune just to get enough RAM to run the system. McAfee said they are talking to suppliers to try and keep a lid on things, but it’s clear they are worried.
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Then there is the software side of things. AMD is rolling out its FSR Redstone update, which uses AI to generate extra frames and smooth out gameplay. But gamers are skeptical. We have all seen how bad frame generation can look when it’s rushed – weird visual artifacts and laggy inputs. McAfee seems to get that frustration. He noted that they are moving “cautiously” because they know players are tired of tech that feels half-baked.
The light at the end of the tunnel?
Eventually, we will get RDNA 4 APUs, which should bring serious power to handheld gaming devices. That is where features like frame generation actually make sense, helping lower-power devices punch above their weight.
But for now? It’s about survival. With memory prices spiraling and the market in flux, AMD isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel this year. They are just trying to make sure the wheels don’t fall off.
