The report from Korean outlet Hankyung is coy about which chips are on the chopping block, although the obvious victims would be Nvidia’s 60- and 50-series cards, which hang on by slim margins at the best of times.

Memory prices have rocketed in a matter of weeks, leaving suppliers no time to adjust their inventories. Instead, the industry has lurched into full-blown panic buying as most DRAM production is funnelled into feeding the global data centre arms race, where the returns are fatter and guaranteed.

In this climate, manufacturers are steering their capacity towards products that make money rather than bargain basement GPUs beloved of cash-strapped gamers.

This shortage has already pushed RAM module prices up at a pace that would make a loan shark blush. If the trend continues, it is not a stretch to imagine mainstream GPU prices doing the same. Budget cards sit on precariously thin profit margins and are usually the first to be sacrificed when components become scarce, which is why several supply chain whispers now point to entry-level parts being quietly sidelined.

The state of the market looks even grimmer when you consider that consumer partners such as Asus have already warned that DRAM shortages could force them to raise retail prices on everything from laptops to graphics cards. Their concerns appear well-founded because each week brings fresh rumours of rising costs, dwindling allocations and the unwelcome prospect of price lists being rewritten in a hurry.

It is a dispiriting moment for gamers who finally thought the chaos of previous component droughts had faded. Instead, a familiar pattern is returning with manufacturers diverting resources towards far more lucrative sectors while leaving consumers to squabble over whatever scraps remain.

If the Korean report proves accurate, the coming weeks could see the affordable end of the GPU market hollowed out just as demand for reasonably priced hardware picks up again. The memory crunch shows little sign of easing, and the industry appears one burst of bad news away from watching mainstream GPU prices soar into places no sensible person would consider sane.