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The figures on display are rather shocking when converted to today's dollars, with 8 MB of RAM going for $399, or $874 in today's money, and a 64 MB stick ringing in at $3,900, or $8,540 in 2026. The Apple Power Macintosh mentioned in the PR had 12 slots, so it could fit in as much as 1.5 GB of RAM, and although the pricing for 128 MB DIMMs wasn't mentioned, those would be around $8,000 a pop, so "only" 1 GB of RAM would come in at $64,000 — enough for a house back then in the more affordable areas of the U.S. By the way, that amount would be $140,000 today.
In 1995, memory technology was transitioning from SIMMs to the spankin' new DIMMs, and Command and Conquer , MechWarrior 2 , and the original Need for Speed were coming out. 16 MB of RAM was generally accepted as a decent amount of memory for a build, roughly matching the 16 GB of today. Some quick math says those 16 MB of the new technology were about $800, or in today's money, the princely sum of $1,751.
As of today, 16 GB of DDR5 will set you back $200 to $250, but the price of memory has been extremely volatile, to say the least. Plus, not only is supply rumored to drop , server RAM contract prices are expected to rise , and the few crumbs left for the consumer market are still rising in price .
SK hynix chairman Chey Tae-won even suggested that DRAM wafer shortages could last until 2030 at least. The fact that all the major RAM makers are shifting their production lines to HBM for AI accelerators is only making the problem worse. Yes, $200 is still a long way from $1,750, but with things keeping in this direction, there's a non-zero chance this very article will be linked to in the near future.
One year into the AI-induced RAM apocalypse
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/one-gigabyte-of-ram-cost-as-much-as-a-house-back-in-1995-pcs-were-brutally-expensive-back-then-and-were-heading-back-in-that-direction#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.