"That's part of the problem," he said. "This price increase I just provided to you, that's not even guaranteed supply." He explained that he needs to place blanket purchase orders at high prices and wait for when suppliers send "buckets of memory here and there."
"This is definitely not the norm; it's never been this way," Santos added. "That's why we're being proactive. We need to adapt without compromising our customers' trust, and that's just the reality of the business right now. Not only is the price high, but we just don't have insight into how much supply we can get, which is very concerning."
There's no specific time limit for Maingear's BYO RAM program. Santos said that he expects it will run through 2026 based on shortages, and he'll keep it going as long as necessary. He hopes that prices will level off in the next six months, though it's unclear what type of increase from typical lows we'll see. He said that it will take a year and a half for new memory production lines to ramp up, leading him to suggest that maybe things will clear up two years from now.
Other system integrators are also looking into alternatives to raising prices on customers with expensive RAM. New York-based Paradox Customs recently announced a program to skip RAM altogether if you'd rather obtain your own on the market or from old builds.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Andrew E. Freedman Social Links Navigation Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net . You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01
Zaranthos The irony that it wasn't that long ago that flash and memory companies cut production because of lower demand. There are probably AI companies sitting on inventory they can't deploy because of lack of power. This crap is hilarious and sad all at the same time. Reply
Christopher_115 Zaranthos said: The irony that it wasn't that long ago that flash and memory companies cut production because of lower demand. There are probably AI companies sitting on inventory they can't deploy because of lack of power. This crap is hilarious and sad all at the same time. I'm surprised this doesn't seem to be being reported on much: "On October 1st OpenAI signed two simultaneous deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 40% of the worlds DRAM supply." https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram-deal 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/desktops/gaming-pcs/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/gaming-pcs/this-memory-situation-is-a-multi-year-problem-says-maingear-ceo-custom-pc-company-offers-up-byo-ram-builds-to-combat-shortages#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- U.S. FCC bans foreign-made drones from DJI, others — DJI to be heavily affected by the announcement, with many American drone pilots up in arms due to lack of v
- Ride Into Adventure With Capcom’s ‘Monster Hunter Stories’ Series in the Cloud
- 1,000 computers taken offline in Romanian water management authority hack — ransomware takes Bitlocker-encrypted systems down
- Another unreleased Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti 20GB Founders Edition engineering sample surfaces on the second-hand market — a previous sample sold for $1,999 on eBay ea
- Search pioneer AltaVista’s star shone bright with a clean and minimal UI 30 years ago — engine lost momentum after multiple ownership changes and the embrace of
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.