Question Is the cost of RAM going up everywhere?

[mikeymikec]

About 12 months ago, I bought Kingston Fury 8GB DDR4-3200 modules for £15 (UKP) a pop. Now it translates through to £33 (the 8GB module isn't available on its own from my normal supplier, so I divided the price of the 16GB pack by 2).

I've checked around other UK suppliers and there definitely seems to be a trend. There's talk about the demand for AI driving up prices of NAND (which I'm seeing too, just not as drastic), but I would have thought that DDR4 memory chips would have been affected by that. I checked DDR5 prices this morning in the hope that the rises DDR4 prices were a sign that it was time to move my baseline PC builds onto DDR5 tech, but no, they're higher still.

 

[zir_blazer]

Yes. Is on the news.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Prices keep climbing. Since the first mining boom, it has been one bubble after another screwing this hobby over. Get complacent and think prices can only go down or stay static and you take the L. That's why I stocked up on DDR4 when it was dirt cheap and I was getting primo 32GB kits of 4000MT/s and higher for $50 shipped in for sale forums.

However, if one of my CL30 6000 sticks fails I'll RMA and game on Zen 3 3D until it comes back, as I don't have backups of DDR5. But using a 5800X3D system as backup was the plan from the time I started eyeing the AM5 build.

 

[Golgatha]

About 12 months ago, I bought Kingston Fury 8GB DDR4-3200 modules for £15 (UKP) a pop. Now it translates through to £33 (the 8GB module isn't available on its own from my normal supplier, so I divided the price of the 16GB pack by 2).

I've checked around other UK suppliers and there definitely seems to be a trend. There's talk about the demand for AI driving up prices of NAND (which I'm seeing too, just not as drastic), but I would have thought that DDR4 memory chips would have been affected by that. I checked DDR5 prices this morning in the hope that the rises DDR4 prices were a sign that it was time to move my baseline PC builds onto DDR5 tech, but no, they're higher still.

DDR4 is going up mainly due to production cuts. DDR5 is going up because datacenters are hoovering up the supply and also because memory manufacturers cut production awhile back due to oversupply. NAND supply is getting hoovered up by datacenters as well. Expect prices to continue climbing and maybe level off. Best case scenario for us is the AI boom busts and all this hardware gets dumped on the secondary market for dirt cheap. That said, the DDR5 supply would likely only be registered ECC stuff, so no good for gaming rigs, and the NAND would likely be U.2 drives, so not easy to install in a gaming rig either (although for the right price I"ll buy some adapters and make it work).

 

[CakeMonster]

I was tempted by a 64GBx2 kit a few weeks ago, they're now like 50% more expensive. Same for 48x2 and and 32x2. Below that capacity prices aren't that crazy yet. Kind of regret that I did not go for it, who knows what the next 1-2-3 years might bring of global events.

 

[gdansk]

Who knows, usually a glut follows shortages. If you are at 64GB you can probably be "fine" until that cheap memory appears. But who knows, maybe AI is really setting a new normal where that'll never happen and memory pricing just gets worse and worse (seems like a business opportunity for the Chinese DRAM company, though).

 

[Soulkeeper]

I was looking at some ddr5 modules for $260-$280 each about 2 months ago, now they are $340+
These are rdimm ecc.
This with newer and better products already announced and coming to market soon.
This is enough to make me not purchase anything untill next year. I already couldn't really justify/afford things. I need to learn to be happy with what I already have and stop chasing the pc obsession hobby.

 

[Indus]

Who knows, usually a glut follows shortages. If you are at 64GB you can probably be "fine" until that cheap memory appears. But who knows, maybe AI is really setting a new normal where that'll never happen and memory pricing just gets worse and worse (seems like a business opportunity for the Chinese DRAM company, though).

I have 32GB RAM on 2 machines and my wife has 16 GB.

Not coming close to filling it up..

But I'm curious.. what needs 64 GB RAM these days besides 4k video editing? Are there any other usage scenarios?

 

[manly]

Pulled 2x8GB SO-DIMMs out of my laptop a few years back, old slow stuff (2133 MHz?). Maybe now is the time to sell it, but glancing at eBay it's probably not worth my time.

As OP mentioned, it's hard to justify a low-end AM4 new build right now (ironically I just ordered a new micro ATX AM4 motherboard, but I expect Amazon to cancel the backorder).

 

[dangerman1337]

In the UK at Scan UK, Corsair 48GB 8400MT/s kit has gone from £345ish to £60 to £405 now AFAIK.

It's going to be a terrible time buying anything computing related next year because memory prices are spiking more and more and memory manufacturers are making a killing. Feels like our only hope is the AI bubble bursting. Because we can't even plug our H100s into the grid yet we're buying up but we're gobbling up all the world's memory supply, don't worry investors we'll make all that money back... somehow.

This is enough to make me not purchase anything untill next year. I already couldn't really justify/afford things. I need to learn to be happy with what I already have and stop chasing the pc obsession hobby.

As I said, it's probably going to get worse in the coming year. AI Bubble + general economic crash (we're due one next year if that 18 year cycle holds) is probably our best bet.