No matter 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 main AI knowledge middle builders, there’s now a serious scarcity of reminiscence chips worldwide—and it’s spiking the prices of DDR memory and NVMe storage by a whole lot of %.
Lenovo is stockpiling RAM to keep prices reasonable, however firms like Raspberry Pi and Framework are being hit onerous, and Samsung can’t even buy memory from itself. Micron is ending its Crucial consumer memory brand 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 might be going to get dearer quickly.
Pre-built PCs
This one is likely to be a bit apparent, nevertheless it’s price mentioning. 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 announced at the end of November that after Black Friday is over, they must elevate costs on all its methods. This follows what it claims have been 500% will increase in reminiscence costs and over 100% jumps in SSD storage prices.
Maingear PC told Wccftech a few weeks ago that it was impending worth climbs and longer lead occasions for methods resulting from aggressive reminiscence worth hikes. They didn’t give a deadline, although. In reality, they steered they’d taken steps to insulate prospects in opposition to worth hikes, however alas, they have been all however inevitable.
It’s not simply gaming PC builders which might be being hit, both. Giants like Lenovo and Dell have introduced impending worth 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 tendencies don’t change course by the second half of 2026, they too should 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? But in case you thought they have been costly now, then wait ’til they’re hit by the approaching RAM scarcity. Just 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 affordable 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 advisable retail worth of $619 ($20 greater than its launch worth), the RX 9070 is now $569, the 9060 XT 16GB is now $369, and the 8GB model of that’s now $309. (That mentioned, how seemingly do you assume companions are to stay to those “recommended” costs?)
Fortunately, Nvidia hasn’t introduced any worth 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 simply a small fraction of their income stream now.) But they could have delayed—and even cancelled—the RTX Super launch due to these worth rises, so even Nvidia isn’t unaffected.
Raspberry Pi and different microcomputers
Raspberry Pi
Microcomputers are nonetheless computer systems, which suggests they want reminiscence. That’s why the credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi system can be seeing worth rises. The base Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM goes to be $5 dearer, however the prime Raspberry Pi 5 mannequin with 16GB of RAM will set you again an extra $25, over 20% extra on its authentic retail worth.
As a option to work round a few of these worth rises for anybody who doesn’t want a lot reminiscence for his or her initiatives, the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched a brand new Raspberry Pi 5 mannequin with simply 1GB of RAM which you could purchase for $45 from CanaKit.
Banana Pi, the maker of fellow miniature PC system, has also announced price rises. No specifics got within the announcement, however they cited reminiscence and eMMC storage worth rises, prompting a have to make their very own “price adjustment” throughout their complete product line-up.
Although OrangePi didn’t announce any official worth adjustments, followers did discover them. Some Redditors noted a doubling in worth for the Orange Pi Zero 2W, going from $19 to $39.
Smartphones, tablets, laptops
This is just the start with these RAM-shortage-inspired worth hikes. With projections that reminiscence can be briefly provide for not less than one other yr—however doubtlessly as 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 worth 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. We all understand how (un)seemingly they’re to truly do this.
Similarly, 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 brilliant spot in all of that is that CPUs aren’t going up in worth, regardless of what some sources have claimed.
AMD has made no statements or suggestions to its distributors that costs for Ryzen CPUs could be rising, and we’ve even seen a number of the lowest Intel costs in current weeks. Black Friday and Cyber Monday performed their half, after all, however Intel chips are genuinely great value now, particularly in order for you super-fancy reminiscence. (Which you in all probability can’t get… given the state of issues… D’oh.)
Shrinking reminiscence demand may 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 can be a correction to this insane development sooner or later, someplace alongside the best way.
Although there’s no assure that the AI bubble will pop and open up a number of the hoarded NAND chips for the remainder of us, costs can solely rise a lot earlier than individuals and firms merely cease shopping for.
Once that occurs, there’s potential for costs to return to a extra affordable, pre-increase stage. No one 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 ultimately. Right?