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Slashdot: Memory Prices Climb 500% In 12 Months

Memory Prices Climb 500% In 12 Months
Published on 2026-08-18T20:03:00Z
RAM prices have exploded over the past year, with some DDR5 kits approaching 500% year-over-year increases and a 128GB kit now selling for $3,399, which is more than 10 times its previous low. Tom's Hardware reports: Things improve as you step down the memory capacities and speed tiers, but not as much as we'd like. You're still looking at $392 for a memory kit that was just $72 last year. To reinforce the point, I pulled the latest average price data from PCPartPicker, comparing where we are today (August 2026) to exactly one year ago. This data is somewhat approximate, but it should be broadly accurate. [...] A standard 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5-5600 kit that would have cost you under $200 last summer is now demanding over $1,100. It is a 5x multiplier on a component that used to be a fairly boring and predictable line item in a PC build budget. If you plan to just wait it out on an older AM4 or LGA1700 motherboard with DDR4, you'd better hope your memory holds out too, because DDR4 isn't safe from the fallout. With DDR5 entirely out of reach for most builders, the resulting scramble for older platforms running DDR4 memory has created a massive knock-on effect, and as a result, DDR4 kits are up anywhere from 120% to nearly 180% across the board. Nowhere near as bad as DDR5 pricing, but it still stings when a kit that was $105 last year is $281 this year. This phenomenon is by no means exclusive to the US, either. German tech site ComputerBase have also been tracking this global trend, reporting just this week that average RAM prices in Europe have skyrocketed by 345% compared to September 2025. Their data shows the squeeze is bleeding into other components too, with hard drive and SSD prices both climbing over 125% in that same timeframe. In fact, the situation is so severe that hyperscale buyers have reportedly already locked in almost all of the global DRAM production capacity for 2027, handing over advance deposits to guarantee their supply of precious DRAM, which is now among the highest-value commodities in the world by weight; mainstream DRAM chips are worth over half as much per kilogram as solid gold.

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