For PC builders, the report suggests that meaningful price relief is still some way off. Memory prices are continuing to rise because AI infrastructure remains the industry's top priority. However, the pace of those increases is slowing as consumer demand reaches its breaking point.
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Etiido Uko is a news contributor for Tom's Hardware covering the latest updates in big tech and the PC industry. He is a mechanical engineer and senior technical writer with over nine years of experience in documentation and reporting. He is deeply passionate about all things engineering and technology, and is an expert in gadgets, manufacturing, robotics, automotive, and aerospace. ","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'); } Etiido Uko Social Links Navigation News Contributor Etiido Uko is a news contributor for Tom's Hardware covering the latest updates in big tech and the PC industry. He is a mechanical engineer and senior technical writer with over nine years of experience in documentation and reporting. He is deeply passionate about all things engineering and technology, and is an expert in gadgets, manufacturing, robotics, automotive, and aerospace.
brotec "Memory manufacturers aren't charities! Yes it sucks for low income consumers but DRAM producers are well within their rights to charge whatever they want and reduce consumer production to maximize profits from the hyperscaler market. It's just the way it is." Reply
Kindaian True, but eventually, there is a market for lower cost memory that is unfulfilled right now and it is not going away. The issue is AI is paying premium for ANY memory right now and cleaning up all the shelves. Imagine that you go to the supermarket and there is no eggs on sale for 4 years, because someone brought all production at the source? And you needed to pay like 10 USD for 1 egg? Reply
Stomx "Prices going to fall", "not justified cost", "price fixing" are not very popular subjects in computer tech media. Mostly salespeople are readers here I suspect for decades. Reply
hwertz "Memory manufacturers aren't charities! Yes it sucks for low income consumers but DRAM producers are well within their rights to charge whatever they want and reduce consumer production to maximize profits from the hyperscaler market. It's just the way it is." Well, as a matter of fact colluding and price fixing are both illegal. I mean, nobody is stopping them, and regulators in the past failed to fine them anywhere near enough to actually discourage them (like one round of fines one of them was fined $9 billion but had set aside like $20 billion already to pay the fines…) But no, they are not well within their rights to do what they are doing. Reply
greenreaper Kindaian said: Imagine that you go to the supermarket and there is no eggs on sale for 4 years, because someone brought all production at the source? And you needed to pay like 10 USD for 1 egg? Guess you better think carefully about how much you want that egg. Hopefully it leads to recipes that require fewer of them, and less wastage of the ones we have already. I appreciate that's putting a positive spin on a bad situation, but software didn't use to use so much RAM or disk space – there's a lot developers could do to help the situation. This might cost more in development time but it's now clearly worth doing, and will probably make the software concerned faster as well (efficiency tends to be a win/win; there are cases you trade space for time, but often a better algorithm uses less of both). Reply
greenreaper hwertz said: Well, as a matter of fact colluding and price fixing are both illegal. It's illegal to fix a price if you are on the same side of a market. It's not illegal to fix a price between buyer and seller, aka "long-term supply agreements" (although there are elements to such deals which regulators might look into, such as required related investments). As you say, collusion for the purpose of anti-competitive pricing is also illegal, but raising your prices because others are and you are running out of capacity is not. There appears to be a real structural basis for this crisis. Reply
King_V greenreaper said: I appreciate that's putting a positive spin on a bad situation, but software didn't use to use so much RAM or disk space – there's a lot developers could do to help the situation. So, while I'm not saying poorly written software doesn't exist, how do you figure it's the responsibility of the software developers to predict and plan for this situation? If I could do that, I wouldn't be in software anymore, I'd've bought up a ton of DDR5 and retired off the boom. And, better written software wouldn't have been enough to mitigate the current RAM price situation. 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/ram/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/memory-price-surge-begins-to-cool-as-consumers-hit-affordability-limit-ai-demand-still-keeps-dram-and-nand-prices-climbing-through-q3-2026#main
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