RAM prices are skyrocketing—and these 5 different devices are paying the value
Regardless of how a lot reminiscence will get produced by the likes of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, there simply isn’t sufficient to go round anymore. With gigantic orders from all the most important AI knowledge heart builders, there’s now a significant scarcity of reminiscence chips worldwide—and it’s spiking the costs of DDR reminiscence and NVMe storage by a whole lot of %.
Lenovo is stockpiling RAM to maintain costs cheap, however firms like Raspberry Pi and Framework are being hit exhausting, and Samsung can’t even purchase reminiscence from itself. Micron is ending its Essential shopper reminiscence model altogether. With reminiscence costs taking pictures up, it’s not simply reminiscence that’s in danger. We’re already seeing a knock-on impact on merchandise that use reminiscence and storage, and it’s solely going to worsen.
Buckle up. The AI-driven reminiscence apocalypse is nigh. If you wish to get forward of the curve and purchase stuff earlier than costs rocket up, listed here are some issues which are going to get costlier quickly.
Pre-built PCs
This one is likely to be a bit apparent, but it surely’s price declaring. If reminiscence prices extra, then it’s going to price extra to construct a PC—and if it’s costing extra for you and me, then it’s positively costing extra for the massive system builders, too. Are they going to eat the loss and proceed giving us nice offers? Ha, after all not.
CyberPowerPC introduced on the finish of November that after Black Friday is over, they must increase costs on all its methods. This follows what it claims had been 500% will increase in reminiscence costs and over 100% jumps in SSD storage prices.
Maingear PC advised Wccftech just a few weeks in the past that it was impending value climbs and longer lead occasions for methods as a consequence of aggressive reminiscence value hikes. They didn’t give a deadline, although. The truth is, they advised that they had taken steps to insulate prospects towards value hikes, however alas, they had been all however inevitable.
It’s not simply gaming PC builders which are being hit, both. Giants like Lenovo and Dell have introduced impending value rises. TrendForce notes that Dell has warned of costs rising by as much as 10 or 15 % by mid-December, and Lenovo is pondering of doing the identical in January 2026. That’s going to hit laptops simply as a lot as desktop methods.
HP CEO Enrique Lores has additionally warned that, if reminiscence pricing traits don’t change course by the second half of 2026, they too must begin elevating costs. With reminiscence making up between 15 and 18 % of a full system’s whole price, any will increase there can have a large impact on the ultimate price ticket of a PC, prebuilt or not.
Graphics playing cards
Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry
When aren’t graphics playing cards costly? However if you happen to thought they had been costly now, then wait ’til they’re hit by the approaching RAM scarcity. Simply once we’d gotten over the crypto spikes of years previous and each RTX and RX graphics playing cards are lastly well-stocked sufficient available at cheap costs, it’s time to spike them up once more.
AMD has boosted its graphics card pricing for all current-generation fashions by $10 per 8GB of VRAM. The RX 9070 XT now has a brand new really helpful retail value of $619 ($20 greater than its launch value), the RX 9070 is now $569, the 9060 XT 16GB is now $369, and the 8GB model of that’s now $309. (That stated, how seemingly do you suppose companions are to stay to those “really helpful” costs?)
Fortuitously, Nvidia hasn’t introduced any value rises but. That is likely to be as a result of it’s the one firm making any actual cash from this spate of AI deal-making and infrastructure constructing, regardless of their very own gargantuan investments. (Gaming is barely a small fraction of their income stream now.) However they could have delayed—and even cancelled—the RTX Tremendous launch due to these value rises, so even Nvidia isn’t unaffected.
Raspberry Pi and different microcomputers
Raspberry Pi
Microcomputers are nonetheless computer systems, which implies they want reminiscence. That’s why the credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi system can be seeing value rises. The bottom Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM goes to be $5 costlier, however the high Raspberry Pi 5 mannequin with 16GB of RAM will set you again a further $25, over 20% extra on its unique retail value.
As a strategy to work round a few of these value rises for anybody who doesn’t want a lot reminiscence for his or her tasks, the Raspberry Pi Basis launched a brand new Raspberry Pi 5 mannequin with simply 1GB of RAM that you would be able to purchase for $45 from CanaKit.
Banana Pi, the maker of fellow miniature PC system, has additionally introduced value rises. No specifics got within the announcement, however they cited reminiscence and eMMC storage value rises, prompting a have to make their very own “value adjustment” throughout their whole product line-up.
Though OrangePi didn’t announce any official value modifications, followers did discover them. Some Redditors famous a doubling in value for the Orange Pi Zero 2W, going from $19 to $39.
Smartphones, tablets, laptops
That is only the start with these RAM-shortage-inspired value hikes. With projections that reminiscence will likely be briefly provide for no less than one other yr—however doubtlessly so long as a decade, which isn’t helped by Micron exiting the buyer reminiscence house—the costs of absolutely anything that wants RAM will go up in flip.
TechPowerUp cites a TrendForce report that breaks down simply how bonkers the reminiscence value will increase have been not too long ago and means that it’s going to unfold out to nearly each different trade. Entry-level smartphones will seemingly be hit first, however the larger margins on higher-end fashions solely give producers a lot wiggle room to eat losses. Everyone knows how (un)seemingly they’re to truly try this.
Equally, count on the identical sorts of will increase to hit tablets, beginning with entry-level fashions with slim margins and later higher-end fashions. Laptops are additionally more likely to comply with, though we’re already listening to the primary hints of that from the likes of Lenovo, Dell, and HP.
Don’t fear about CPUs
One vibrant spot in all of that is that CPUs aren’t going up in value, regardless of what some sources have claimed.
AMD has made no statements or solutions to its distributors that costs for Ryzen CPUs can be rising, and we’ve even seen among the lowest Intel costs in current weeks. Black Friday and Cyber Monday performed their half, after all, however Intel chips are genuinely nice worth now, particularly if you would like super-fancy reminiscence. (Which you most likely can’t get… given the state of issues… D’oh.)
Shrinking reminiscence demand might assist
There are conspiracies going round about reminiscence producers colluding to reap the rewards of the continuing RAM pricing spikes, however pay no thoughts to these. There will likely be a correction to this insane development sooner or later, someplace alongside the way in which.
Though there’s no assure that the AI bubble will pop and open up among the hoarded NAND chips for the remainder of us, costs can solely rise a lot earlier than individuals and firms merely cease shopping for.
As soon as that occurs, there’s potential for costs to return to a extra cheap, pre-increase degree. Nobody can promise something, as there’s no clear finish in sight for upward RAM pricing… however in the long run, it has to shake out finally. Proper?
