RAM prices surge 400% as AI demand consumes 70% of global memory chip production

Why your RAM options cost 4X more now than last year - even legacy tech prices aren't immune

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways * RAM prices are soaring primarily due to demand for AI. * Helium shortages are also contributing to RAM shortages. * We're seeing a domino effect on older RAM as manufacturers try to bypass higher prices. How crazy high are RAM prices right now? So crazy that even moving to RAM technology that's two decades old won't help protect consumers from increased costs Rising RAM prices are pushing up the prices of all your favorite gadgets, such as Raspberry Pi boards (now a pair of 16GB Pi 5 boards will cost you the same as a MacBook Neo), and will likely push up prices for all things Apple in the very near future. Also: MacBook Neo vs. Surface: Why spiraling RAM prices are bruising Microsoft's PC business but not Apple's To try to work around these price increases, some hardware manufacturers decided to step back in time and use RAM based on older technologies, but now, with fresh demand, prices for older hardware have gone through the roof. Why is RAM so expensive? Bottom line: demand. Most industry experts blame AI data centers as the main culprit. G.Skill, a leading RAM manufacturer, issued a statement last year explicitly citing "unprecedented high demand from the AI industry" as the reason behind skyrocketing prices. AI data centers use two types of RAM -- High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and LPDDR5X. A single server rack can consume 20TB of HBM3E and 17TB of LPDDR5X, and that's enough LPDDR5X for a thousand laptops. And that's just one server rack out of the thousands that you'll find in a single data center. Data suggests that AI data centers will mop up about 70% of all memory chips produced globally in 2026. And AI companies are willing to pay big bucks to get hold of this RAM, so RAM manufacturers have shifted to prioritizing high-margin DDR5 and HBM RAM server chips. The demand is so great that earlier this year, Micron shuttered its entire consumer-facing Crucial memory brand to focus on enterprise AI customers. Also: How much RAM does your PC need in 2026? My advice after using Windows and Mac for years But to be fair, it's not just AI that's the problem, though it is the biggest part. The 2026 war in Iran has also played its part. While oil supplies have been the primary focus of this conflict, it's also affected helium supplies. The gas you're probably most familiar with from those floaty foil birthday balloons also plays a vital role in the semiconductor chip industry. While the US is the biggest producer of helium, the second-largest producer is Qatar, a country across the Persian Gulf from Iran. Following repeated attacks, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar has essentially been cut off, resulting in the disappearance of a third of the world's helium supply. How bad is the problem? Very bad. Around this time last year, I could buy a 32GB DDR5 RAM kit for about $100 to $120; now you're looking at around $400. While DDR5 is the latest and greatest, DDR4 was still in use for a lot of lower-priced systems, but as RAM makers shift production, prices here have increased dramatically. This time last year, I could pick up a 32GB DDR4 kit for about $60 to $70. Now that same kit is over $200. How is AI pushing up the prices of legacy RAM? But none of this can be affecting the price of 20-year-old RAM, right? Wrong. Also: Why my Raspberry Pi boards suddenly cost as much as a laptop now - and I'm not surprised As device manufacturers seek sanely priced RAM, they've been looking at legacy RAM in the form of DDR3 (released in 2007) and DDR2 (released in 2003). DDR3 and DDR2, which had vanished from the consumer space, were mostly used in industrial equipment, medical devices, automotive, and networking systems, and were still being manufactured primarily for mission-critical legacy systems that couldn't be upgraded to newer RAM. Now DDR3 and DDR prices have spiked dramatically. The demand for this legacy RAM is such that DDR2 prices have spiked by about 60% in Q2 2026 alone. And this isn't the end of it -- TrendForce expects another increase of 35- to 40% over the next quarter. Pricing is so volatile that we're now seeing hourly pricing, which makes planning almost impossible for companies. Why not make more DDR2? Even if prices of DDR2 hadn't spiked, it's not the lifeline that it seems, because it's essentially obsolete for a lot of applications. For example, DDR2 isn't supported by Windows 11 (well, technically, processors that support DDR2 aren't supported by Windows 11), so even if there were a limitless supply of old RAM modules, it wouldn't help those looking for a cheap PC or a reasonably priced PC upgrade. This just affects PCs and servers, right? Nope. Smartphone prices have already increased by as much as 25%, with budget phones under $300 being hit hardest. Also: Solid-state vs. graphene heat dissipation: Why my portable battery of choice is easy Manufacturers have had to choose between raising prices and engaging in "spec shrinkflation," reducing RAM and storage to keep prices from rising. Neither of these options will be welcomed by buyers, and analysts predict the global smartphone market will shrink by 2.1% this year. Will RAM prices stabilize soon? The most optimistic estimates that I've seen for when RAM shortages will ease and things might get better is the second half of 2027, but even if prices come down, that level will be at 60- to 100% above what we were paying in 2024. Not really the stabilization that most were hoping for. Why not build more RAM factories? RAM manufacturers are doing just this, but the problem is that it takes years before a plant produces its first wafer of RAM. And even then, manufacturers will prioritize AI customers.

MacBooks Are the Latest Victim of the Memory Shortage. Here's Why Laptop Prices Keep Rising

Gone shopping for a new laptop recently? It's not your imagination; prices are up. Memory and storage prices have exploded since the second half of 2025, and we're nearly a year into this mess. Everything with memory in it or on it, from complete PCs to components such as graphics cards, has spiked in cost, inflating PC prices. (Apple is the latest company to announce significant price increases to its lineup of laptops, desktops, and iPads.) Strap in, because top-level memory makers like SK Hynix see this crisis lasting through 2030. That's a long time to weather these skyrocketing prices. (Hey, it's even inspired some particularly resourceful engineers to make their own RAM.) No device that relies on memory modules to function is safe. As one of PCMag's lead hardware writers, I've been tracking the issue and digging into how we got here. I've been testing PCs and keeping up with their pricing for more than 15 years now, and I'm confident in predicting that the next year or more will be tough for buying a new laptop. The same models that you know are still available and receiving the usual revisions, but almost all of them are pricier than last year. Here's why. Why Is RAM So Expensive Right Now? Let's first understand why RAM prices have surged so much and why they will continue to rise. The simple answer is overwhelming demand from the AI-compute giants. Massive banks of memory are critical to peak AI performance, making memory chips essential to meeting the soaring need for AI power. The data centers that power ChatGPT and other AI tools are gobbling up a massive chunk of the available memory-manufacturing bandwidth. AI applications don't necessarily demand the exact same kinds of memory that PCs do, but the relevant memory factories, or fabs -- these days, largely concentrated among three big players, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix -- have only so much capacity. This year, AI-centric memory is projected to consume 70% of global memory hardware production, according to TrendForce, a Taiwan-based industry analysis and consulting company focused on the semiconductor industry. That leaves only so much capacity for consumer stuff. To meet that AI data-center hunger, major memory-chip makers are shifting some of their manufacturing capacity to stacked-design high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server-grade DDR5, further cutting the supply of chips destined for consumers and consumer-grade machines. How big a shift is this? For example, American memory giant Micron has exited the direct-to-consumer memory market entirely, shutting down its longtime Crucial sub-brand familiar to many upgraders and home PC builders. It will still provide memory to commercial PC makers, but the crunch affects them, too. A starved supply, with no drop in demand, means prices have gone through the roof -- and they're expected to stay high for a year or more, as AI software giants such as OpenAI and AI-hardware titans such as Nvidia try to lock in supply pricing, contracting huge numbers of yet-to-be-made wafers and chips. It's Not Just the RAM: Graphics Cards, SSDs Are Under Pressure, Too The trouble is that these rising prices won't stay limited to just DDR5 RAM modules. (DDR memory is also referred to as DRAM.) We're already seeing upticks in DDR4 and DDR3, older memory standards that may not deliver the speed needed for current AI tech but do just fine for more pedestrian uses. Plus, this supply shortage is affecting other components that contain memory as part of the whole. The immediate ripple effect will hit graphics cards, which rely on dedicated memory for assisting with graphics rendering and local AI workflows. (And memory crunch aside, graphics cards themselves are also seeing huge increases in demand.) The prices of GDDR6 and GDDR7 video memory used by those cards are rising for the same reasons: The cost per gigabit has more than tripled in the last six months, and this price surge will translate directly into more expensive desktop and laptop graphics cards. As PC users feel the squeeze on memory, they're likely to turn to fast solid-state drives (SSDs) and software solutions to offset constrained RAM. But the companies making DRAM overlap with those making the NAND chips used for the SSDs that laptops and desktops rely on. And if DRAM demand is pulling manufacturing capacity away from consumer DRAM chips, it will also pull capacity away from the chips that make up SSDs. The price of NAND wafers has already climbed in lockstep with memory, jumping as much as 60% month-over-month last November, according to supply-chain analysis firm Procurement Pro. Naturally, as the price of those components rises, so does the total cost of a new laptop. Major laptop brands such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo have already publicly estimated price hikes of 15% to 30%, and smaller companies like Framework have taken steps not only to raise RAM prices but also to prioritize the sale of complete systems over standalone parts to deter scalpers from scarfing up freestanding components just for resale. Maybe you're not seeing the signs of this quite yet. To some extent, current prices have been stabilized by existing inventory. A company like Apple was able to fend off price increases for a while because the chips it had on hand were purchased at lower prices. But with those stockpiles drying up, the competition for what remains on the market will get heated...and more and more expensive. The takeaway? Prices aren't just peaking, they're going to be higher for a while. And with companies buying up manufacturing capacity in advance, it could be years before things stabilize. Laptop Pricing Forecast: Expect Some Big Price Increases These price increases will be across the board: Every laptop category, from Chromebooks to gaming laptops, will get more expensive as memory remains bottlenecked by price and availability. And it's going to strike those categories in different ways. High-end laptops for gaming and media creation are already luxury items, but prices for 32GB and 64GB systems will soar further. High-memory configurations (in any category) are going to get a lot more expensive. Meanwhile, ultraportable laptops (both business and consumer models) may shift entirely to soldered memory chips -- aside from Lenovo's ThinkPad T-series and Framework's modular offerings, socketed DDR5 RAM was already hard to find in these kinds of laptops. I suspect that a protracted supply issue will snuff out most of those that are still around. (That said, mobile workstations will likely keep using memory modules; their prices are traditionally high to start with, and they're considered more investment-grade machines.) I'd expect 16GB to emerge as the new ceiling for moderately priced laptops, and 32GB models will become even more premium. Budget systems and Chromebooks may not see prices rise as high, since most already offer just 4GB or 8GB of memory to begin with. But when prices are low to start, a $500 laptop quickly becomes a $650 laptop when you factor in a 30% price increase. I'd expect the selection of machines in the under-$500 category to shrink over the next year, and, perhaps, for 4GB to re-emerge as a more common memory amount in the very cheapest machines. Google's Chromebook Plus guidelines, for one thing, mandate at least 8GB of memory, so most of those models may no longer start at the $399 base price we've seen from some of these machines in recent years. Apple's 2026 MacBook Neo seemed to buck this trend, debuting at just $599 as a budget option during this crisis. That's a scenario Apple pulled off using stashes of processors culled from the manufacturing of its smartphone chips, and by leveraging its deeply refined manufacturing process. But even this budget laptop may have been too good to be true; Apple raised the cost of its base-model Neo by $100 on June 25, 2026. How to Buy a Laptop in the RAM-pocalypse This new pricing paradigm means a few things for laptop shoppers. The first bit of advice is similar to what I suggested back when tech tariffs were the price threat of the moment: If you know you need to buy something relatively soon, buy it now, before prices climb higher. Laptop prices will become more volatile over the next year or two, and they'll go only one way: up. Second, plan for today and tomorrow, whether that means paying more up front for extra RAM you might need, or looking for a system that lets you upgrade the RAM. With so many systems today using soldered-down memory, you're usually stuck with whatever you select at purchase. So either bite the bullet and pay for the RAM you need at checkout, or buy a system that will let you upgrade once this demand wave has passed. Finally, if you really need to save this year, don't look forward, look back. A 2025 or even 2024 laptop model might be a year behind in processor or graphics technology, but you might be able to save a bunch by buying, say, an Apple M4 MacBook or an early Intel Core Ultra model that was priced before the RAM crunch. However, move fast, because speculators may start snapping up older or used systems for the chips, or to flip the whole system later for a profit.

RIP, Reasonable Laptop Prices

Video game console and hardware prices have also had huge increases. The PlayStation 5 increased by $100 back in April. The base version of the OLED Steam Deck went from $550 to $790, while the 1 TB configuration had a $300 increase. Put simply, prices for consumer tech are rising because the supply of the components used to build them -- most pressingly, for memory (RAM), storage, and processors -- is very low. That supply is low because manufacturers that would usually be building those components for your devices are instead diverting most of their resources to components intended for AI. They're building high-bandwidth, server-oriented memory and specialized processors for AI calculations, parts that are destined for dedicated servers installed within massive data centers. AI companies are building new data centers to grow and improve their products. The processing requirements, or "compute" demands, for AI are increasing by 4.5 times per year, according to the Epoch AI research institute. To meet that demand and keep up with the competition, companies have to build more data centers full of servers, and constructing them requires the same kinds of materials as building any other computer. RAM, storage, and processors are made by a small number of manufacturers. Manufacturing memory, the chips that are used to build modern storage devices, and the processors that power everyone's devices is a sophisticated, expensive process. Only a handful of companies are capable of building these things at scale. For memory and storage, these are SK Hynix and Samsung in South Korea and Micron in the United States, while the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is responsible for more than 70% of global semiconductor contracts. (Semiconductors are the building blocks for the processors in every consumer electronic device.) This means that when these companies divert their components away from consumer laptops and toward AI data centers, no established competitors are available to step into the void. OpenAI triggered a rush to buy up RAM in late 2025. Last October, an agreement between Open AI and SK Hynix and Samsung caused a scramble in the AI industry to lock down long-term agreements for RAM. (Disclosure: The New York Times has sued OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, and Microsoft for copyright infringement.) This rush resulted in an immediate increase in the price of memory for desktop PCs that expanded to affect the price of laptops, phones, game consoles, and more. By the end of 2025, companies such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo were warning of higher prices for laptops and tech in 2026 based on the increased cost of RAM. Storage demand has also skyrocketed. Though laptop and device makers planned for increased RAM costs in 2026, few were prepared for a similar increase in demand for solid-state storage drives (SSDs) like the ones found in your laptop or PC. SSDs store information on NAND memory chips mostly manufactured by the same companies as RAM, with SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron acting as the biggest players, and AI servers have storage needs similar to those of personal computers and phones. This has led to a huge jump in SSD prices, with companies like Xbox claiming a 4x increase in the six months starting in November 2025 and ending in May 2026. Tariffs delayed price increases, sort of. Though tariffs were responsible for price increases across various sectors in 2025, they affected laptops, phones, and similar devices less in part due to strategic product distribution. Because tariffs were announced in advance, many companies shipped huge numbers of products ahead of deadlines in order to avoid paying the tariffs and raising prices in turn. However, that supply is more or less gone, and so too is whatever price reprieve that tariff-inspired rush to ship offered.

RAM prices expected to rise another 40-50% in Q3 2026, and then 30% more in Q4 as AI demand outpaces supply

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Winners & losers: The memory shortages pushing consumer electronics prices higher are expected to worsen through the rest of this year and into 2027, with possible relief not arriving until 2028. While manufacturers and industry analysts largely attribute the spike to AI infrastructure demand, a new California lawsuit accuses the three companies that dominate DRAM and NAND production of conspiring to exploit those conditions and artificially inflate prices. Ethan Tan, a memory industry consultant and former Samsung China executive, told Jefferies Equity Research analysts during a recent briefing that he expects memory prices to rise by 40% to 50% in the third quarter of 2026 compared to the prior quarter, and by another 30% to 40% in Q4. Those figures significantly exceed prior estimates from Western investors and Jefferies' own internal research. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron together produce nearly all of the world's DRAM and NAND, which commands far higher margins in AI data centers than in consumer PCs, smartphones, or game consoles. With data center demand currently exceeding the three companies' combined production capacity, prices have climbed as much as 700% over four years. Consumer memory has grown prohibitively expensive as a result, prompting steep price hikes from Apple, Sony, and Microsoft, among others. Tan calculates that since advances in semiconductor nodes will only increase supply by 7% to 8% in 2026, shortages will persist into next year, when prices could rise another 40% to 45% annually. A combination of expanding supply and moderating AI demand may push prices back down 15% to 20% in 2028. Also read: DDR5 Prices Are Broken, So We Tested Cheaper Chinese RAM Furthermore, the impact of Chinese suppliers such as CXMT is expected to be limited in 2026 and 2027, primarily because domestic manufacturers lack access to the advanced fabrication techniques, such as EUV lithography, needed to produce next-generation chips. Benchmarks show that CXMT's DDR5 RAM is already viable for consumer PCs, and Apple has been lobbying the US government for permission to source from the blacklisted company. But CXMT will not be able to advance to DDR6 or HBM3E in the near term. Tan does, however, expect China's domestic NAND technology to reach parity with the rest of the industry by 2028. A group of 17 California plaintiffs argues that the situation is at least partly by design. As reported by Law360, a new lawsuit accuses Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron of deliberately restricting DRAM supply to inflate prices in an anticompetitive manner. If the case moves forward, it would be at least the third memory price-fixing scandal in roughly 30 years. In Garciaguirre et al. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., the plaintiffs accuse the trio of curtailing DRAM production even as prices rose, pivoting capacity toward HBM server memory, and eliminating conventional supply channels to push prices higher. Their central argument: in a truly competitive market, at least one manufacturer would have increased output in response to rising prices, forcing a reaction from the others. The case also highlights the towering barrier to entry that has kept advanced DRAM and NAND production in the hands of just three players. Building fabs costs tens of billions of dollars, takes years, and requires decades of accumulated trade secrets. US export controls further prevent Chinese companies like CXMT from acquiring the most advanced manufacturing equipment. If the case moves forward, it would be at least the third memory price-fixing scandal in roughly 30 years. Samsung, SK Hynix (then Hynix), Micron, and the now-defunct DRAM divisions of Infineon and Elpida pleaded guilty to conspiring to fix prices between 1998 and 2002, with Samsung paying a $300 million fine and SK Hynix paying $185 million. The same three giants came under suspicion again when prices spiked in the late 2010s, triggering a US class action in 2018, which was ultimately dismissed on appeal for lack of sufficient evidence, and a Chinese government investigation.

Lenovo warns that higher RAM prices are the "new normal" and we might never see them go back down

This year has been plagued by price hikes and skyrocketing RAM prices. Unfortunately, it may be the "new normal" according to Lenovo. At a recent conference, Lenovo said that DRAM and NAND prices will "never" return to pre-2025 levels. And this is despite companies like Micron and SK Hynix building new fabs and adding capacities to try to meet the supply gap. The "never" was apparently presented as a joke, per the German site ComputerBase. The company's presenter then went on to say that higher prices would be the "new normal" in 2030 and beyond. It's not a comforting statement from a company that has been quite open about the RAM crisis spiking prices and changing their computing strategy. Memory and storage prices have come down a bit since a peak in April, but they're still hundreds of dollars more expensive than they were a year ago. And we can see the impact on gaming with Xbox raising prices again and Apple issuing broad price increases this week. Shifting blame AI is to blame for the ongoing memory crisis. Datacenters that power large language models and other AI tools are demanding and have bought up most of the capacity of the big three memory manufacturers: Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix. Micron's chief business officer didn't blame its biggest customer for the memory shortage this week and instead obliquely hinted that Apple is behind it to the Wall Street Journal. In his remarks, CBO Sumit Sadana didn't name the Cupertino giant but suggested that tough supplier negotiations meant the company couldn't invest in more fabs or capacities. "We told a couple of the customers who were being very aggressive with pricing at that time that this is not constructive. A lot of the industry investments got shut down in 2023 because of really poor pricing and really poor margins," Sadana told the WSJ. Micron is a memory supplier for Apple, providing DRAM and NAND chips that are used in iPhones, Macs and iPads. Apple has been known to push for long-term purchasing contracts, where other companies might only get short-term six-month to one-year deals. Sadana's comments surfaced just as Apple announced its price increases. Apple's outgoing CEO warned about price hikes in an interview with the Wall Street Journal a week ago, calling the shortage a "hundred-year flood." He pointedly blamed the demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers that shrinks the memory supply for consumer devices like the MacBook Neo. For now, you're screwed because some guy on LinkedIn wants to generate a picture of a cat dressed as Napoleon taking over Disneyland and call it "good business." Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Alternatively, you can read our content on the Tom's Guide app available now for iOS and Android. Subscribe to Tom's Guide on YouTube and follow us on TikTok. Finally, you can visit our dedicated Tom's Guide Savings Squad hub for expert help on getting the best products for less.

RAM prices are about to rise nearly 50 percent. And it gets worse.

Memory shortages due to the AI boom have brought about RAMageddon as prices are expected to soon rise even further. Credit: JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images If you're planning to upgrade your computer's memory or buy a new device soon, now may be the time to do it. That's according to tech analysts who are sounding the alarm: RAM prices are about to rise by nearly 50 percent in the coming weeks. According to a report from Jefferies Equity Research analysts, memory chip pricing is expected to rise between 40 and 50 percent in the third quarter of 2026 -- between July 1 and September 30, in other words. Hoping that relief is on the horizon, in the form of increased supply to meet the demand? Alas, that doesn't seem likely anytime soon either. Memory prices are expected to rise even further, between 30 and 40 percent more, in the fourth quarter (October through December). And it only gets worse next year; analysts project memory price hikes will continue with a year-on-year increase of 40 to 45 percent in 2027. Memory chip manufacturers, like Samsung and Micron, have already sold a good portion of their output to companies building out AI data centers. That means fewer chips for consumers in the form of PCs, smartphones, and video game consoles. Demand from AI companies is skyrocketing, going far and beyond what the manufacturers can keep up with. As Mashable previously reported, Micron has warned that RAM shortages could last into 2028. In February, hard drive manufacturer Western Digital shared that its "top 7 customers" had bought out all of its storage supply for the year. In addition, the company said that these companies were already buying up its supply into 2028. As a result of AI-driven shortages, consumer products have skyrocketed in price. Apple recently raised the price of its MacBooks by as much as $500. Gaming companies have also struggled with the shortages. Microsoft recently raised Xbox gaming console prices by as much as $150. Recent leaks suggest that Sony will either have to sell its upcoming PlayStation 6 console at a minimum of $960 or push the launch date back into 2028 or even beyond that. In short, RAMaggedon is well and truly here.

DRAM shortage chaos pushes DDR4 sky high, dragging brands back to DDR2

* AI infrastructure spending has broken the global memory supply chain * DDR2 prices are set to surge 60% in Q2 2026 alone * Some manufacturers are redesigning DDR3 systems around DDR2 to secure components The AI boom is creating unexpected consequences across the memory industry, including renewed demand for technologies introduced more than two decades ago. As manufacturers prioritize advanced products serving AI infrastructure, older memory generations are becoming increasingly difficult to source in meaningful quantities. That shift is now pushing DDR2 prices sharply higher despite the technology first appearing around 25 years ago. Legacy memory demand rises as newer DRAM becomes scarce DRAM shortages have pushed memory prices sharply higher, with DDR4 contract pricing reportedly surging by as much as 2200% at some point. Industry executives such as Nothing CEO Carl Pei and Framework have warned that supply constraints and elevated pricing are unlikely to ease in the near term. According to TrendForce, these structural changes in the DRAM market are forcing buyers to move backward through successive memory generations, and limited mature-node supply is pushing some brands to switch from newer memory to older ones that are available in larger volumes. TrendForce estimates that DDR2 contract prices will increase by roughly 55% to 60% during the second quarter of 2026. Prices are then expected to climb another 35% to 40% in Q3, creating one of the strongest pricing surges seen in the legacy memory segment for years. The situation stems partly from decisions made by the world's largest DRAM suppliers, which continue directing manufacturing resources toward advanced memory technologies. Growing demand for HBM and server DRAM, both closely linked to expanding AI infrastructure investments, has reduced wafer allocations available for older consumer-focused products. As availability tightens, companies purchasing DDR4 memory have increasingly turned to Taiwanese suppliers for additional capacity. Demand has therefore spread across several generations of products, creating pressure that now extends into DDR3 and DDR2 markets. Some manufacturers have reportedly replaced DDR4 designs with DDR3 solutions, while certain DDR3-based systems are being redesigned around DDR2 memory to improve component availability. Suppliers gain leverage as production shifts toward higher-margin products The imbalance between demand and available output has strengthened the negotiating position of some memory manufacturers. With supply unable to keep pace, vendors have gained greater flexibility to raise contract prices while concentrating on products that generate stronger returns. Winbond, one of the key suppliers of DDR2, is reducing the production of older standards and redirecting the capacity toward DDR3, DDR4, and LPDDR4 products. Such a transition is expected to place additional strain on DDR2 availability during the coming quarters. As production contracts, buyers dependent on legacy platforms could face increasing competition for a shrinking pool of components. Manufacturers like Elite Semiconductor Memory Technology (ESMT), however, are increasing their focus on DDR2 production within their existing wafer allocation. The company hopes to capture the surging demand in an effort to improve profitability while helping address part of the supply shortfall from Winbond's withdrawal. Whether these supply conditions represent a temporary market distortion or the beginning of a prolonged shortage remains uncertain. What is becoming clear is that AI-driven demand for advanced memory is now affecting even very old product generations, creating ripple effects that few expected to reach DDR2. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

DRAM prices surged by up to 89% in Q2 2026, destroying the consumer segment

The RAMpocalypse reached a new milestone in Q2 2026. According to market research firm SigmaIntel, consumer memory prices rose sharply in the second quarter as supply-demand imbalances persisted across the industry. These are quarter-over-quarter figures, meaning prices didn't just climb versus last year; they also jumped relative to the already elevated Q1 2026 levels. The LPDDR segment took the worst hit. LPDDR4X 4GB ICs rose 75%, going from $26.2 to $45.9, while 96Gb (12GB) LPDDR5X modules surged 89%, climbing from $77.1 to a whopping $145.9. This is the single biggest price jump in DRAM across any segment. On the standard DDR side, a 16GB DDR4 stick now costs $207.1 versus last quarter's $137, a 51% increase, while a basic 16Gb (2GB) DDR module jumped from $19.2 to $28.5, up 49%. It is important to note that DDR5 pricing wasn't even included in SigmaIntel's report, and we've already documented how brutally expensive DDR5 has become. The core driver behind the surge in memory prices is, of course, the AI boom. More specifically, AI datacenters are being established and expanded at an alarming rate, and that requires lots and lots of RAM. LPDDR memory is increasingly being adopted in next-generation server GPUs, intensifying competition for supply. As we warned back in late 2025, AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards were also set to get more expensive once the fixed supply contracts of 2025 expired, and that's exactly what happened. Wafer production capacity continues to be prioritized for high-value products such as HBM, server DRAM, and enterprise SSDs, leaving consumer memory supply persistently short. Storage is in equally bad shape. According to SigmaIntel, a 512GB NVMe Gen4 SSD now costs $126.3, up 54% quarter-over-quarter. Moreover, 256GB UFS 3.1 has more than doubled, rising 103% to $62.7, while uMCP is up 107% to $150.4. These components are the backbone of virtually every PC and smartphone on the market, and manufacturers are already passing costs on. Laptop and smartphone makers have raised prices across the board, and even gaming hardware like Valve's Steam Machine has been forced to raise prices, partly due to pressure from memory and storage costs. AMD itself warned during Computex 2026 that DDR5 prices won't normalize until 2028, and that assessment still holds. SigmaIntel notes that some smartphone and PC brands are already adjusting their memory orders due to cost pressure, and that the pace of DRAM price increases in the second half of 2026 may moderate slightly. That's the optimistic read. The pessimistic one: cloud providers are still restocking, channel inventories remain at just two to three weeks of supply, and AI memory demand shows no signs of softening. For consumers building or upgrading a PC right now, or buying a new smartphone, it looks like the bill is going to stay high for the foreseeable future.

Buying a new phone or laptop in 2026? Here's why it'll cost more

Surging RAM and storage prices are having a nasty knock-on effect Are you looking to upgrade your smartphone or trade up to a new laptop soon? This may not be the best time to do it. 2026 is already a turbulent year for tech, but price rises are coming thick and fast. Games consoles, TVs, smart home kit and even new cars are set to leave more of a dent in your wallet than they otherwise would. The memory modules used by pretty much every consumer gadget are in short supply, which has pushed up wholesale prices on the remaining production capacity. Manufacturers are now going to pass those higher prices onto you. Apple is the latest to adjust prices across pretty much its entire lineup, with some Mac computers leaping by a massive $1300. Here's what's causing the cost increases and which gadgets stand to be most affected. I've also got a few tips on how to avoid overpaying for your tech this year. Why is tech more expensive in 2026? It's all AI's fault, essentially. The tech industry's obsession with artificial intelligence has created a gold rush, with investors sending stock prices stratospheric. Nvidia is now the world's most valuable company, being valued at a ludicrous $4.7 trillion; it makes over ten times more from AI hardware than it does from consumer graphics cards. That unprecedented investment has let AI-related businesses build bigger and more powerful data centres. All those servers need memory - lots and lots of it. Firms with the funds have been able to hoover up the world's supply of DRAM and NAND modules (the memory chips used for memory and flash storage) leaving the consumer tech world to fight over the scraps. In the past few months alone, the price of RAM modules has reportedly increased by several hundred percent. The increased demand for - and higher margins of - enterprise-grade hardware has in turn made memory manufacturers like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix shift their production away from consumer chips. Samsung's semiconductor division reportedly refused a RAM order from its own Electronics subsidiary for the new Galaxy phone range, while Micron folded its Crucial brand entirely, ending a 30 year run of PC gaming RAM and SSDs. What sort of gadgets will cost more? Pretty much all of them. Smartphones and laptops felt the pinch immediately, as memory and storage make up a considerable portion of their bill of materials (BOM): as much as 20% in a mid-range mobile, or 15% in a flagship, according to industry analysts IDC. In June Nothing announced it wouldn't make a successor to the CMF Phone 2 Pro as component prices made it impossible to build a new phone that was meaningfully better than the old one while sticking to the same wallet-friendly price. The biggest brands like Apple and Samsung likely have long-term deals with memory makers guaranteeing supply through 2026, so it could be 2027 before consumers really feel the pinch. It does mean the Galaxy S26 and iPhone 18 models are unlikely to see RAM or storage size increases from the current generation, though, in order to stretch that supply as far as possible. PC hardware, games consoles and gaming handhelds all rely heavily on memory modules. Some consumer DDR5 memory kits now cost three to four times their pre-AI bubble RRPs. Desktop graphics cards carry equally eye-watering price tags. Smaller brands and DIY computer builders are some of the hardest hit, but even industry heavyweights have felt the pinch. Sony raised the price of every PlayStation 5 variant in March, while Nintendo at least gave gamers a heads up that the Switch 2 would cost more from September 2026. Rumours suggest the next-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles could be delayed from an expected 2027-2028 launch window while the firms wait for prices to stabilise. Valve had to confirm its more expensive Steam Deck OLED wasn't an all-new model and its PC-based Steam Machine hardware landed at a much higher price than originally planned. Even Apple felt enough of a pinch to hike prices almost universally in June, with iPads, MacBooks, HomePods and the Vision Pro headset all seeing increases. You should also expect TVs to feel the impact. There could even be a double-whammy where new models cost more and the outgoing sets don't see any significant price reductions. When will technology prices stabilise? There's no end in sight currently. While memory manufacturers are racing to build new production facilities that can meet demand, they won't be fully up and running for at least another year. It's predicted to take a further six months before their output will meaningfully affect supply. That could mean multiple years of higher prices, unless the AI bubble bursts. There's no sign of that happening any time soon. How to avoid paying extra for tech in 2026 The obvious answer is to avoid upgrading your gadgets until memory prices and availability stabilise. If you can eke another year of use from the smartphone currently in your pocket, things might have improved by the time you come to replace it. If that's not an option - maybe your battery has bitten the dust or your screen is so cracked now you can barely make out your incoming messages - consider buying a 2025 handset instead. There are some proper bargains to be had if you shop around. With no new graphics card generation yet, PC gamers might want to dial the graphics settings down on their games rather than replace their GPUs. The latest processors from Intel and AMD also only offer slightly faster performance than the outgoing chips (outside of AI performance, which you might not even care about), so there's not as much to gain from buying new components as there has been in previous years. Shopping second-hand could also be an option. Let someone else swallow the increased costs on new components, and buy their old kit for a more reasonable price.

As Steam Machine and Xbox are latest to fall to the RAMpocalpyse, Micron CEO says RAM shortages won't ease until 2028, probably

The leading memory producer says "tight conditions" will continue through 2027, "gradually improve" in 2028 Playing video games is rapidly becoming a much more expensive hobby than it was just a few years ago, as AI-driven memory shortages and economic instability fuel rising hardware prices, and the CEO of a leading RAM producer says things are unlikely to ease up until 2028, at the earliest. The affordability crisis putting pressure on manufacturers to hike prices is the result of a perfect storm in which inflation, tariffs implemented by the US government, and memory shortages caused by the rapid development of AI data centers collide. This year alone, Nintendo Switch 2 prices shot up by $50, a PlayStation price hike brought the premium PS5 Pro all the way up to $900, Valve increased the price of entry to the Steam Machine lineup to $1049, and just today, Microsoft raised Xbox prices up $100-$150 depending on the model. Meanwhile, building your own gaming machine via assembling PC components isn't a remotely affordable alternative, as RAM in particular remains exorbitantly pricey. I genuinely wish I had more optimistic news to share on this front, and I'm sure eventually things will settle down, but according to Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, that day won't be for many months. "We expect tight conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027 as a result of AI-driven demand across all segments coupled with structural supply constraints," Mehrotra told investors in the company's Q3 earnings report (via IGN). "Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand," he added. Naturally, the implications for the price of future generations of gaming consoles, specifically the PS6 and Xbox Project Helix, are dire. Analysts have predicted the next-gen consoles to debut with 50% higher price tags than their current-gen counterparts, and $1000 base models aren't out of the question. That said, Microsoft and Sony could decide to wait out the RAMpocalypse and simply delay the new consoles until the component shortages and related price elevations are in the rear-view. That could potentially push the next generation of consoles into the 2030s, with reports indicating Sony is already considering an internal delay.