Tanakoi Notton said: Yeah, I kind of expected this would happen. 300% price increase on DDR5 is only the beginning. Who knows, by 2026 year end, it could hit 800%. Nope. You forget that higher prices not only act to reduce demand, but also to stimulate supply. Current memory prices are getting chipmakers to allocate more capacity to RAM production lines. Prices will likely rise a bit further over the next 3-6 months, but will then begin descending. Reply
VizzieTheViz Notton said: Yeah, I kind of expected this would happen. 300% price increase on DDR5 is only the beginning. Who knows, by 2026 year end, it could hit 800%. Question is, will other makers (i.e. Apple) further increase prices on memory upgrades too, or are they satisfied with their already exorbitant markups? Apple has never been shy about charging an arm and a leg for upgrades, I don’t see them saying “an arm and a leg is well and good but you can keep your kidneys” any time soon. Best option is not to buy memory at these prices unless you need it for work and can pass the cost on to your customers. Reply
LordVile Tanakoi said: Nope. You forget that higher prices not only act to reduce demand, but also to stimulate supply. Current memory prices are getting chipmakers to allocate more capacity to RAM production lines. Prices will likely rise a bit further over the next 3-6 months, but will then begin descending. There are no more RAM production lines, they’re already maxed out VizzieTheViz said: Apple has never been shy about charging an arm and a leg for upgrades, I don’t see them saying “an arm and a leg is well and good but you can keep your kidneys” any time soon. Best option is not to buy memory at these prices unless you need it for work and can pass the cost on to your customers. I doubt they’d be affected this soon. They price them up and adjust pricing of models to account for cost over time. Plus they have contracts with everyone for static pricing. Plus it’s come at a good time for them between large production cycles anyway. Reply
eldakka1 Tanakoi said: Nope. You forget that higher prices not only act to reduce demand, but also to stimulate supply. Current memory prices are getting chipmakers to allocate more capacity to RAM production lines. Prices will likely rise a bit further over the next 3-6 months, but will then begin descending. Logic and DRAM production lines are completely dfifferent. You can't jsut re-purpose logic-manufacturing equipment to make DRAM. You have to replace most of the fab equipment. Things like the transports etc. that zip wafers around the line can of course be re-used, but most of the equipment that does the etching, depositions, lithography etc. would have to be swapped out for ones designed for making DRAM. (NOTE: HBM, which is where most of the DRAM capacity is being switched to produce, does use logic chips on the bottom layer of the stack, so those can of course be built in logic fabs, and currently are, but HBM DRAM is less dense and has a higher failure rate than traditional DRAM, therefore to make 8GB of HBM requires the DRAM manufaturing capacity of at least 2x (if not 3x) of DRAM, so switching low-margin DRAM manufacturing for high-margin HBM means a much greater than 1:1 loss in DRAM capacity, thus further excerbating the DRAM shortage) . Therefore in all practical purposes the world is at 100% production capacity for making DRAM. It will require 2-3 years to substabtially increase manufacturing capacity of RAM by building new lines (3-4 years) or converting logic lines (2-3 years) to DRAM. You have to remember that the fab equipment to make this sort of stuff isn't just sitting on shelves waiting to be sold and quickly installed by the RAM manufacturers. Every one of these items is 'special order' equipment. You place an order with the vendor of the equipment, and they then go and make it for you, which, depending on how big the queue already is with other manufacteres orders, is likely 18months at minimum, more like2-3 years. If you are really lucky someone who ordered equipment has cancelled their order (likely went bankrupt and left the business entierly) so you may be able to pick up a device quickly, but you need many such devices to build a production line, not just one or 2. Reply
Tanakoi eldakka1 said: Logic and DRAM production lines are completely dfifferent. You can't jsut re-purpose logic-manufacturing equipment to make DRAM. Completely different? No, of course not. Logic requires more CD control and more metal layers, so repurposing a DRAM line for logic is indeed quite difficult, but the other direction is substantially easier. Your figure of "2-3 years" is quite inflated … 9-12 months is much closer to the mark. Actually, it could be theoretically done with just recalibration — no retooling at all — though the manufacturer would get killed on efficiency and yields. In a normal market, that wouldn't make sense, but if DRAM prices rise much further, it might be economic. And there's another factor you're forgetting: memory planned for introduction in 2027 are now being accelerated. At the margins that now exist in the industry, manufacturers can afford to pay for a lot of overtime and expedited delivery charges. Reply
LordVile Tanakoi said: Completely different? No, of course not. Logic requires more CD control and more metal layers, so repurposing a DRAM line for logic is indeed quite difficult, but the other direction is substantially easier. Your figure of "2-3 years" is quite inflated … 9-12 months is much closer to the mark. Actually, it could be theoretically done with just recalibration — no retooling at all — though the manufacturer would get killed on efficiency and yields. In a normal market, that wouldn't make sense, but if DRAM prices rise much further, it might be economic. And there's another factor you're forgetting: memory planned for introduction in 2027 are now being accelerated. At the margins that now exist in the industry, manufacturers can afford to pay for a lot of overtime and expedited delivery charges. Aside from it’s not the same you need different equipment. Also they’re not being accelerated they’re expected to come online in 2027/28 as the current demand is unlikely to last through to then and they were burned the last time this happened 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/laptops/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/laptop-maker-framework-announces-another-memory-price-hike-says-another-increase-is-coming-within-a-month-encourages-buyers-to-bring-their-own-memory-and-check-pcpartpicker-for-better-deals#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.