I was building a new PC last month using some parts I purchased earlier this year. The 64 gigabyte T-Create DDR5 memory kit I used was priced at $209 at the time. Today? The same kit costs $650!
Just last week, we learned that Raspberry Pi was raising the prices of its single-board computers. Micron is killing the Crucial brand of RAM and storage devices. completelyWhich means there will be one less consumer memory manufacturer. SAMSUNG Can’t even buy RAM yourself to build your own smartphone, and smaller vendors like Libre Computer and Mono are seeing RAM prices double, triple, or even double. much worseAnd they aren’t even buying the latest RAM technology!
I think PC builders might be the first crowd to be affected across the board – just look at these crazy graphs from PC Parts Picker, showing RAM prices ranging from $30 to $120 for DDR4, or even $150 for DDR4. five hundred dollars For 64 gigawatts of DDR5.
But its impact on other markets has just begun.
Libre Computer reported on Twitter that a 4 gigabyte module of LPDDR4 memory costs $35. It is more expensive than every other component in their single board computers JointYou cannot survive by selling products at a loss, so once the current production batch is sold out, either prices will increase, or some product lines will be out of stock.
The smaller the company, the worse the impact on price. Even the Raspberry Pi, which I’m sure has slightly higher margins built in, has already raised SBC prices (and introduced the 1GB Pi 5 – perhaps a good excuse for developers to abandon JavaScript frameworks and program for lower memory requirements?).
Cameras, gaming consoles, tablets, almost anything that has memory is going to take a hit sooner or later.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but compared to current On the market, Apple’s crazy memory upgrade pricing… is actually in line with the rest of the industry.
Of course, the reason for all this is AI datacenter buildout. I have no idea whether there is any pricing going on as there was a few decades ago – that’s something conspiracy theorists can debate – but the problem is that there are only a few companies producing all the world’s memory supply.
And all those companies realized that they could make billions It costs more dollars to make RAM just for AI datacenter products, and the rest of the market is ignored.
So they’re shutting down their consumer memory lines, and dedicating all production to AI.
Even companies like GPU board manufacturers are being affected; Nvidia isn’t giving them memory with their chips like before, basically telling them “Good luck, you’re on your own for VRAM now!”
Which is especially rich, because Nvidia is making profits obscenely Away from all these things.
It’s all bad enough, but some people see a ray of hope in it. I’ve seen some people say, “Well, once the AI bubble bursts, at least we’ll have a ton of cheap hardware hitting the market!”
And yes, in past decades, this may have been a consequence.
But the problem here is that a ton of the RAM they’re making is either being integrated into specialized GPUs that won’t run on normal computers, or being fitted into specialized types of memory modules that don’t even work on consumer PCs. (See: HBM).
That, and the GPUs and servers being deployed now don’t even run at normal power and cooling, they’re part of on a large scale Systems that would require a great deal of effort to run even in the most well-equipped homelab. It’s not like the classic Dell R720 that just requires some air and a wall outlet to run.
Which is to say, we’re probably entering a strange era where the hobby of PC building has died down, SBCs have become insanely expensive, and anyone who hasn’t stocked up on parts since the beginning of this year is in deep trouble.
Even Lenovo admits to stockpiling RAM, making it like a toilet paper situation in 2020, except for massive corporations. Not enough supply, so companies who can do incurring the expense of acquiring something and purchasing it in whole, in the hope that a long-term shortage will be partially offset Because Of that store.
I don’t think it’s entirely crazy to think that some companies will start removing memory chips from other systems (ala dosdude1) for stock, especially if RAM prices keep rising.
It’s either that, or just stop making the product. There are some echoes of the global chip shortage in 2021-2022, and it has really shaken up the market of small companies.
I’d hate to see it happen again, but somehow, here we are a few years later, except this time, the AI bubble is to blame.
Sorry for not having a positive note to end this on, but I think… maybe it’s a good time to dig out that pile of old projects you never finished instead of buying something new this year.
How long will this last? It’s anyone’s guess. But I’ve already postponed some projects I was supposed to do to 2026, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
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