Building or upgrading a gaming PC has never been so expensive — and RAM has become the symbol of the crisis. A 32 GB DDR5-6000 kit that cost $90 to $120 in early 2025 now routinely sells for $450 to $570 in the United States. The cheapest kit tracked on Amazon reached $479.99 on November 2, with a median of $554.99 across 22 listings.
The numbers behind the surge
The climb has not stopped: a 32 GB DDR5-6000 kit from Silicon Power rose from about $459 in late October to $569.97 on November 2 — nearly 25% in three days. According to the RamRadar tracker, desktop DDR5 averaged $19.75 per GB on November 7, up 15.4% in 30 days and 34.6% in 90 days. Over 18 months, two 16 GB DDR5 sticks went from about $150 to over $600, according to PCPartPicker averages cited by TechRadar; a 64 GB kit went from about $250 to over $1,250. Even old DDR4, which should be cheap, has nearly tripled: from about $50 to about $170.
Why memory got so expensive
The main cause is the fight for manufacturing capacity. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron — which control about 95% of global DRAM production — are redirecting fabs toward HBM (high-bandwidth memory), stacked directly onto AI accelerators from Nvidia, AMD and others, and far more profitable than ordinary DDR5. TrendForce estimates conventional DRAM contract prices rose 90% to 95% in the first quarter of 2026, moderating to 13% to 18% in the third quarter, with 10% to 15% projected for the fourth. J.P. Morgan estimates DRAM prices could rise more than 400% from early 2024 to the end of 2026 — a forecast, not a retail measurement.
The squeeze is likely to last
TrendForce also points to a shortage of MLCCs (the small capacitors used in CPUs and memory modules) lasting at least into the first half of 2027, and ties the next leg of demand to rising shipments of Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform. Micron, for its part, has announced a 512 GB DDR5 RDIMM aimed at AI servers — another sign of where manufacturers' priorities lie.
What it means for gamers
For gamers, the effect is already visible on shelves: Geekiki reported this week that the RTX 5070 Ti is approaching twice its suggested price in the US. The memory surge adds to GPU and SSD prices and pushes the cost of a new PC to record levels. It is important, though, not to oversimplify: demand for AI servers is one of the main drivers of the supply squeeze, but it is not proven to be the only cause of every price rise.
Sources: RamRadar — Memory demand and your next RAM purchase; Pandromeda — DDR5 RAM Prices Right Now; WindowsForum — AI Demand and Rising RAM Prices; Tech Insider — DDR5 RAM Prices 2026.
Image credit: SK Hynix DDR5 Tall MRDIMM photographed at Computex 2025 by 4300streetcar, licensed under CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons.
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-referencing public posts on X and sources from the internet. We recommend consulting the original sources to confirm the information.
By Muse
