This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Don't worry, China is about to flood the market. Don't buy RAM yet, wait for the prices to normalize first.
Don't be too hopeful. China will first fill their demand
Definitely, but they also won't miss the opportunity to become a major actor in the industry globally. Contrary to the US, they have in the past decade made a lot of moves to establish their influence globally.
Which will impact the demand world-wide, because China's demand also takes from that either way.
Aug 2024, I purchased 32gb of RAM for $109. That same kit today would cost me $509. Sept 2025 I got a 250gb nvme for $33 that is now around $85. The inflation is real.
oh you kids...let me tell ya how much RAM was in the late 90s....
I appreciate the fact that this is a still gif (good compression!), but it has several frames with differing compression artifacts for no good reason.
Not inflation, just artificial shortage
Ditto, thought 64 would've been overkill at that point...
RAM has always gone through huge price cycles as long as I can remember. You buy when it is good value then don't when it goes up. The industry always responded to high prices by building too much capacity so after a few years the prices all crashed.
This time it feels different. We don't have the huge diversity of producers we once did. The 3 big remaining players clearly operate as something like a cartel. I doubt they are responding to current shortages with huge new fab investments.
Lots of PC part manufacturers and retailers aren't going to make it through to the over side of this. I think it could lead to massive long term changes for the DIY market.
I quite like the idea of people just not engaging with this.
Can't play the latest AAA because I can't afford the equipment for it? No worries, there's literally thousands of other games out there.
More realistically though, people will end up subbing to a streaming service, which is almost certainly what the companies would prefer.
This isn't necessarily about games.
My mini PC only has 4GB of RAM because I thought I'd just buy it later, and "for now" if it just boots it's fine.
I'm mostly just concerned on what I'll do if a piece of hardware dies or corrupts at this point.
If you've got a PC built in the last few years you can play them anyway.
Mostly this affects people whose PCs are pretty old already :/ but like if you've got an AM4 build you can just upgrade your GPU and maybe CPU if necessary and keep your good ol' DDR4. AM4 truly the GOAT of CPU sockets in terms of longevity.
This is so true.
My PC I built has parts from as far as 12 yrs ago and day to day tasks go very smoothly especially since I switched to Linux. I haven't bought a newly released game from a big publisher since Borderlands 3 and that ran fine. Most recent indie games still run well too.
I'm currently planning on upgrading with used parts from 2020 ish not because I need to, but because I'd like to play some games from 2010-2020 in medium-to-high graphic settings and hopefully make it last another decade.
Chasing AAA highest setting has always been an expensive hobby, but not it's straight up luxury that only those with a lot of disposable income or make a living off gaming can afford. And honestly that's fine because there are just so many good games out there that don't require the specs.
or maybe, just maybe... You could, are you ready for this idea...?
Play on medium settings !!!GASP!!! Or worse, play it at 1080!
I mean if you've you hardware that needs upgrading, you aren't playing new games at medium anymore either and your display is probably 1080p anyway.
1080 and 1440 is a pretty big difference. 1440 and 4k, not so much. Definitely agree that there’s a point with settings where you just don’t really notice the textires/reflections/etc. when you’re playing the game.
Idiot me bought a 4k laptop and be fucked if I'm not gonna use every single pixel on that screen (even if I can't tell a difference between 1440 and 4k)
Piracy and giving them nothing is the answer
RETURN TO THE OLD WAYS
That's what I do for new games now, fuck $100 for a linear single player game. I implore all studios to use Denuvo as it's the best DRM on the market 😉
You can't pirate ram though
that's why workstation cases have locks.
Oh, have I got news for you...
1gb of ram costs more than 1 hour of minimum wage
HDDs have doubled in price recently too. Not a good time to try building a computer.
Who puts an HDD into a desktop computer in 2026? For a NAS I would understand, but putting an HDD in a desktop is very uncommon nowadays, even as a secondary drive
I didn't say desktop. But, in any case, there are plenty of reasons someone might want extra storage in their desktop without shelling out for an SSD.
Building a computer like 5 years from now will be a weird experience because you will buy most parts from brands that you have never heard of. Very few of the manufacturers we know today will still be around by that time.
They will have Chinese RAM by then, so yeah, its going to be the random made up Amazon/Temu Chinese brands.
AmzRamBar24
Which is the same thing as the GOODKINDSTICK that everyone says is really good, but only if you get the V3.65 from 2025, the new stuff is garbage.
And you have to be careful because their versioning is broken. Version 5 is older than 3.
The Xbox 1 says hi
Yes, this is Microsoft. They have some issues with counting.
Xai SpaceX RamX CyberRam10! For the finest computer crashes you've ever seen!
Much more than doubled. Most high-TB drives are not in stock anywhere, and even if you find a drive, the best deals are around $26-28/TB for used drives, whereas before new deals would be $10/TB. If you're looking for a specific new capacity, you may be paying $36-40/TB.
Upgraded my homelab with 256GB right before the prices went nuts. Lucky me.
But before I bought the best GPU at the time for absolute peak-price, adamant it would rise further and never going back.
So...universe equalized for me. For now.
Devs just need to optimize their software. My i5 750 still works just fine with a 1060 and 16gb ram. Their's thousand of great games to play, fuck the aaa.
Nah. Fuck AI companies causing the shortage. They should stop delaying the inevitable bubble crash and suffer real consequences.
I mean sure, fuck all those AI business. But the idea that we always need more powerful hardware is a consumerism illusion.
I agree but also this shit is also affecting people who may just need replacement part or in my case just need an SSD so I can see about converting my old PC into a nomad.
As you can imagine, this is enormous pricing pressure for enthusiasts trying to build gaming PCs or upgrade their rigs in 2026.
Waiting until 2028 for anything involving RAM would be a good idea, if possible. You're likely to get more for your money.
If you've got money burning a hole in your pocket and are determined to spend on gaming computer hardware in 2026/2027, it might be a good idea to consider things like game controllers, displays, or something like that, since those don't have prices driven by memory price.
Going back to the 90s when a few megabytes was hundreds of dollars.
That'd be great if software still had the same small footprint it had back then.
