
Stephen is Tom's Hardware's News Editor with almost a decade of industry experience covering technology, having worked at TechRadar, iMore, and even Apple over the years. He has covered the world of consumer tech from nearly every angle, including supply chain rumors, patents, and litigation, and more. When he's not at work, he loves reading about history and playing video games. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Stephen Warwick Social Links Navigation News Editor Stephen is Tom's Hardware's News Editor with almost a decade of industry experience covering technology, having worked at TechRadar, iMore, and even Apple over the years. He has covered the world of consumer tech from nearly every angle, including supply chain rumors, patents, and litigation, and more. When he's not at work, he loves reading about history and playing video games.
TechieTwo Maybe gamers will just have to "suffer" with 16 GB instead of 32GB. Reply
TheTonicmole Personally, I'm finding the DIY segment far more interesting. A lot of innovation is happening to work around high ram prices. We're seeing considerably more optimization than in the past 10 years, squeezing more power out of older platforms. It's also slowly forcing people to look passed marketing hype and actually plan out their system instead of throwing money at it. Reply
SkyBill40 I had an idea a while back about building a new system and using parts from my old one as I usually do. However, with the price escalation and general stagflation of things, the likelihood I build another is pretty much zero. I'm perfectly satisfied with the build I have and though it would be nicer to get to the peak of my mountain and really showcase what my equipment would allow, I just can't do it. I've had an anti-AI stance for the longest time and the pandering, money hungry companies forgoing the retail consumer space for the focused AI enterprise crowd was just the last straw. Reply
Gurg With AMD m/b longevity and the spiralling of RAM, SSD, and GPU prices, I'm looking more at a CPU upgrade for my 9600x PC. With the new AMD desktop CPUs coming out next year, it will be interesting to see the performance improvements and cost as well as what their introduction does to the higher level 9 series pricing. Prices on the 9900x and 9850x3d are already becoming much more attractive. I bought higher performance DDR5 and M.2 SSD two years ago when I last upgraded. Reply
yankees992012 Thank goodness I bought 32Gb of RAM earlier this year. This is getting ridiculous. Reply
torbendalum I upgraded the parts in my computer about a year ago, just 2 months before the prices started to go up, i bought 64GB DDR5 6400 MT/S cl32 RAM and at the time I thought, that is a lot of money to spend on memory, maybe I should just buy 32. I am so glad I went for 64 GB as the kit I bought is now 5 times as expensive and it will last for some years. Reply
Vicecrow Still kicking the old ddr4 at 4000mhz. Will waiting for the ddr6. The 14700 is a monster Will last tive more years till become slow. Reply
jahswii This is just corporate velociraptors testing the fences. Prices for everything will continue to rise until they hit a threshold where people react with their money (not just their e-fingers). Then they will drop prices just a tiny bit to make everyone feel like they are our saviors…. and itll work because the bulk of consumers are that gullible… Reply
usertests jahswii said: This is just corporate velociraptors testing the fences. Prices for everything will continue to rise until they hit a threshold where people react with their money (not just their e-fingers). Then they will drop prices just a tiny bit to make everyone feel like they are our saviors…. and itll work because the bulk of consumers are that gullible… $/GB is the important number for the RAM commodity, not the total price. It will go down as supply and demand normalizes, and density increases lower the cost per bit of production. What's going to be bad is if we can't upgrade RAM in most devices, if CAMM doesn't take off in consumer-oriented laptops. Reply
beyondlogic the fun part is it isn't just the price of memory its storage 32gb of ddr5 at 400 usd taking the biscuit though at worst the other pc parts will become cheaper when no one buys them hell in uk there bundling cards and psus together to move them. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ddr5/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ddr5/32gb-of-ddr5-6000-ram-now-costs-usd400-the-latest-price-hike-puts-diy-pc-building-further-out-of-reach-than-ever-before#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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- GeForce NOW Shakes Up August With 26 New Games
- Apple price hikes continue as Mac mini with 16GB RAM and 256GB is now $899 — 1TB storage option adds $500 to entry-level headless system
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.