DRAM Prices Surge roughly 170% as Global Memory Shortage Deepens
Posted by NGGKroze@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 109 comments
Posted by NGGKroze@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 109 comments
ecktt@reddit
Microsoft just said they are sitting on GPUs which means Big business bought up all the GPUS driving the price up without any place to use them. The same thing is happening with RAM. Prices will come down in a year.
EitherGiraffe@reddit
Being so hype driven or focused on denying your competition access to compute that you buy hardware to store in advance is a pretty clear bubble indicator.
Franklin_le_Tanklin@reddit
Especially with how aggressively these things depreciate.
doscomputer@reddit
$200k 288gb HBM accerlators aren't gonna depreciate any time soon unless in the next 4 years someone is selling terabytes of RAM
Franklin_le_Tanklin@reddit
Total? Micron and Samsung easily sells that much per day.
RockChalk80@reddit
That's only slightly more than 31 computers with 32gb of ram each.
Micron and Samsung are probably easily selling Petabytes of ram each day.
Franklin_le_Tanklin@reddit
Exactly my point haha
crysisnotaverted@reddit
Not me in the second-hand market waiting for the bottom to fall out so I can slap these shits in everything.
Franklin_le_Tanklin@reddit
Everything’s computer!
Visible-Advice-5109@reddit
Yeah, we're in a bubble.. but I wouldn't bet my life savings shorting NVDA right now because bubbles can last a long time before they pop.
MDCCCLV@reddit
The valuation of AI companies is much higher than what it should be but there are many uses for datacenters and gpus and military drones alone have an unlimited demand for nvidia. The AI companies might fold or lose most of their stock price but there is a reasonable business case for them to operate as a normal medium profit company.
Qweasdy@reddit
Yeah, most people aren't saying Nvidia, Microsoft, meta and Google are going to implode. But their market caps are pricing in a near bottomless money pit they're somehow going to make from AI, something they have yet to actually figure out how to do. Once/If the market has conclusively ruled that out as an option their stock prices are in for one hell of a market correction.
varateshh@reddit
Not today, but what about 5-10 years? A lot of tech companies are incestuously investing in each other and buying each others products through debt. This makes tech companies increasingly look like Keiretsu that have obscure their finances. Outsiders won't know something is wrong until it turns into a disaster.
Qweasdy@reddit
The reason why nobody is expecting them to collapse isn't because they're not doing some stupid stuff with their money. People are expecting them not to collapse because it's actually their own cash they've been spending, these companies are some of the most successful in the world, most of the spending has been funded out of the massive cash reserves they have had for years with nothing to spend it on. It's the main reason they've been so keen to spend absurd amounts of money on it in the first place, they've been waiting for something to spend it on anyway.
Microsoft, Google and meta can afford to have their AI investments hit zero and write it off as an "oopsie". Nvidia will be fine because they're the only company that's actually made money off it, if it hit zero tomorrow they'll still have came out of it with a profit and go back to selling gaming hardware as their primary business.
OpenAI and all the other startups are probably fucked though.
MDCCCLV@reddit
The other part is that AI and machine learning is actually incredibly effective at target id for drones, and for cases where they are operating autonomous without a man in the middle (which hasn't really happened yet ) you would want your best ai and nvidia chips. If you can make that work you'll have millions of orders, with all the problems that an autonomous terminator implies
Virtual-Patience-807@reddit
Product has use-cases =! Infinite demand
Very common [rationalization] mistake to make in bubbles.
MDCCCLV@reddit
For war between china and the US there is very much infinite demand, although not infinite cash, but both sides want to have more than the other. And then everyone sees how from the ukraine war if you don't have drones then you can be invaded so they would also like a good amount of drones. War demand has special rules for itself.
Qweasdy@reddit
The market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent.
pmjm@reddit
If Trump loses the tariff case at SCOTUS the entire market is going to explode, NVDA included. Especially if they give the tariffed businesses refunds, it'll be like they all get a stimulus check.
kwirky88@reddit
When the dot com bubble burst the internet didn’t go away.
Visible-Advice-5109@reddit
No, but 90% of those companies went bankrupt and the major hardware company that skyrocketed during that time (Intel) is worth half as much nkw as 25 years ago. Sure, if you'd picked Amazon back then out of the 100 other companies wuth the same business model you'd be sitting pretty now, but if you picked the other 99 not so much.
doscomputer@reddit
literally none of the websites that people actually used went bankrupt
name one single site that died from the dotcom bubble that wasn't a total grift or a clone, I'll wait
fumar@reddit
Aol
parrotnine@reddit
pets.com
oursland@reddit
Just people's retirement accounts, employment, homes, etc. No big deal.
Visible-Advice-5109@reddit
Lot of people here haven't experienced this yet. I started working right before the Great Recession and half the guys at my job were talking about how they were about to retire.. 3 years later none of them had retired yet because their savings got blown up.
oursland@reddit
I was finishing up my undergrad and my professors were having a discussion on how they had to push back retirement plans by 5 years, which they did.
doscomputer@reddit
They are a cloud company, they sell azure services to AI devs. If you and me could run our own local AIs, they wouldn't have a business model.
They aren't hoarding stock from sam altman or google, they're hoarding stock from the end users
Exist50@reddit
But that's not what they did. The whole article was spinning a theoretical as fact.
DonStimpo@reddit
Of course Microsoft is sitting on GPUs. They would be sitting on CPUs, memory, storage, nics, switches, cables. Literally everything they need to get their data centers back online as quick as possible. With their uptime guarantees they don't have the luxury to wait for suppliers.
Amazon, Google, Meta, etc... would all be doing it
Exist50@reddit
No, they did not. The entire scenario they described was theoretical. They don't actually have a stockpile of GPUs sitting around that they can't deploy.
Bonzey2416@reddit
32GB DDR5 now costs $250 instead of $90
warlord2000ad@reddit
Just in time for when I keep hitting 32GB limits so want to upgrade to 128GB
zxcvbnmqwerty12345@reddit
It’s gonna come down when there is increase in production. It’s nothing like rare product.
JuanElMinero@reddit
Samsung: Hey, you guys remember 2022?
Micron/SK Hynix: Yep.
Samsung: Ok, let's not ramp production this time and just sell at insane prices. Good talk.
WarEagleGo@reddit
so glad federal usa regulators will tackle big business abusing their position
/s
mujhe-sona-hai@reddit
They're Koreans not Americans. The US isn't the world.
Exist50@reddit
Well that's not the relevant detail. The USG can and has regulated foreign companies if they operate in the US.
LyptusConnoisseur@reddit
USG can't prove shit. It's not like they are sending emails to each other about colluding. Also if DOJ sues them, they'll just say we lost billions in last 4 years because there was overcapacity and they are making a business decision.
Exist50@reddit
I'm not saying it's happening this time, but there have been fines for collusion before. It's hardly without precedent.
mujhe-sona-hai@reddit
How are they gonna get the ram prices down? if the US demands below market rate then they simply won't sell to the US. It's like China banning US soybean, cool now China buys their soybean from Brazil and since Brazilian soybeans are now more expensive other countries who would have bought Brazilian soybeans are now buying US soybeans. The market balances itself.
Vb_33@reddit
The US isn't the world. There's tons of regulation agencies in all the countries these companies do business in (think all the countries in Europe) yet none of them are stopping them.
Visible-Advice-5109@reddit
Realistically what do you expect them to do? Samsung abd SK Hynix are Korean companies that the US has no control over and the US can't just stop buying memory either. Even if they did these companies would just gladly sell all theur products elsewhere.
Tuna-Fish2@reddit
The only wildcard in this is CXMT. They won't play ball with that, they are rapidly expanding production capacity to gain more market share.
Won't help with the high-end products they still can't make, though.
LyptusConnoisseur@reddit
Funny because they also aren't increasing production.
WhoTheHeckKnowsWhy@reddit
well can't sell to us at least. These chinese companies are usually obligated to serve the domestic market, most of all state contract; over international buyers for their best stuff.
Virtual-Patience-807@reddit
RAM pricing is global though, if China stops importing RAM there will be plenty left over for the rest of the world.
(Cartel shenanigans not withstanding).
+China will happily export that RAM to any country where they can (like Africa), once their lines are expanded enough.
Its the electric car market all over again.
noiserr@reddit
That's not what's happening. The production is actually sky rocketing.
self-fix@reddit
Except SK Hynix is the one doing the talk this time
dragonblade_94@reddit
It's going to take a while for consumer production to ramp back up to normal levels. Some DRAM & flash manufacturers are getting booked for their entire 2026 capacity by datacenter bids; the market is in a place where sales are guaranteed for everything they manage to push out, which of course will be focused on the higher margin parts.
Having spoken with multiple memory MFG's, there's high confidence that the price & availability trend will continue through at least Q2 '26, and reasonable expectation that there will be little to no relief by 2027, sans some big industry shakeup.
Frexxia@reddit
Except the memory cartel would rather stop producing than reduce prices. This is what always happens.
PastaPandaSimon@reddit
This was the case back then. Now, they would lose the game altogether to the Chinese vendors that are ramping up and looking for any Samsung /SK client they can win over.
Virtual-Patience-807@reddit
There's quite a few articles out there on how quickly CXMT is ramping, both DDR5 and for HBM.
They do have a bit of a bottleneck on HBM production vs their own planned demand for 2026, but no sanctions on the production machinery for HBM so they've been stockpiling.
The usual suspects will be "shocked" how quickly china will eat up the RAM market.
snowfordessert@reddit
Except HBM3E and HBM4 is a rare product.
PriscFalzirolli@reddit
Yes, but it takes at least a couple of years to build new factories and significantly ramp up production.
3G6A5W338E@reddit
Time to buy in bulk and resell/scalp.
Zeor_Dev@reddit
There is no shortage if you can buy it without delay. Shelves are full, prices are inflated because A) some businesses buying lots of it B) pure greed
doodullbop@reddit
Why does it seem like with DRAM (and NAND) there's either a huge glut that craters prices, or this? Like with the 2011 Japan tsunami, that was understandable because manufacturing was taken offline. But in this case it's purely just because demand is that high? The article says the shortage could last a decade. A NAND shortage honestly makes a lot more sense, since data is being produced at an exponential rate and we need storage for it. But it seems like demand for DRAM would be more linear, idk apparently not.
Verite_Rendition@reddit
Because that's exactly how it works.
Commodity memory (DRAM and NAND) is the classic example of a boom-bust commodity market. Companies build out new capacity, something eventually causes a crash in demand that sends prices down, companies cut back on production, prices rise, and companies build out new capacity to take advantage of those higher prices once again.
https://semiwiki.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Opps-We-Did-it-Again-Semiconductor-Memory-5-768x768.jpg
It used to be we'd do this cycle around every 2 years. But with the higher complexity and longer build-out times for newer fabs, we're closer to a 4 year cycle at this point.
doodullbop@reddit
That makes complete sense. Super annoying for the buyer but I get it, thanks.
doscomputer@reddit
all of these companies are publicly traded, they all have tons of banks and financial people who only care about ASPs and Margins
its literally not within anyone's interest to increase volumes because even if they make more profit, the cost per profit looks less attractive to investors.
this was a big reason why apple started to crater in the 90s, they basically abandoned the consumer product line because all the financial people were too caught up in having high margins to distract investors from the fact that volume had been declining quarter after quarter, and then suddenly profit margins were still enough, but they couldn't sell to anyone and had massive backlogs of inventory.
but here in 2025 apparently everyone in this world is stupid rich to afford $2000 month rent/utils, new phones, leased cars, and fancy gaming computer and laptops. the fact the 4090 and 5090 have sold as well as they did should scare everyone else who's not rich because we're about to be an extreme minority in this world
Visible-Advice-5109@reddit
It's interesting to me as someone who started following the industry 25 years ago how what you get for you dollar is essentially flat (or even decreasing) now. It happens to all industries eventually, but kinda crazy seeing semiconductors finally reach that point. Definitely raises a lot of questions about where progress will come from in the future.
SirMaster@reddit
There’s no way it’s decreasing. You can get way more GB of ram for way less today than 10 or 20 years ago. Plus it’s way faster ram too.
I just checked and 5 years ago 32GB of DDR4 4000 CL15 cost me $350.
Today people are saying prices are way high yet I can still see 32GB of 6000 CL30 for half ($175) what I paid for my ram 5 years ago.
varateshh@reddit
Tbh 32 GB 4000 CL15 is very premium ram that is specifically binned for enthusiasts. The equivalent today is probably DDR5 32 GB 8000 CL38 (unsure about timings for DDR5) ram. Prices in my market are around $350-$400ish with what is probably mediocre timings.
Five years ago you could have bought mediocre 32 GB DDR5 for a lot cheaper than $350.
SirMaster@reddit
What’s faster though? DDR4 4000 CL15 or DDR5 6000 CL30?
AstroNaut765@reddit
The prices stopped going down with ddr4.
Just to give example, you can pay today $50 to get 32GiB of new ddr3 (4*8GiB). Year ago it was $25.
Visible-Advice-5109@reddit
For logic it's literally decreasing. Maybe not quite there for memory yet, but definitely headed in that direction.
1998marcom@reddit
The pattern you observe, averaged across industries, is just the result of central banks' policies. Their job is ensuring that prices on average go up by 2-3%, otherwise who would consume knowing prices will go down? No one would buy a computer knowing that its price will go down in the future. /s
PriscFalzirolli@reddit
The return on computer hardware investment is still very high (if anything, it's higher now than during the early 2010s), it's just that demand is outpacing supply big time.
Individual-Sample713@reddit
I'm pretty sure prices are high because of two reasons
1 they announced they are focusing on HBM memory for AI. and people rushed to buy memory reducing supply on the retailer side.
2 Hynix and Samsung still have chips it's not like they stopped making memory chips over night. but they reduced shipments to manufacturers so they can have a more steady supply and avoid an actual shortage down the line.
Virtual-Patience-807@reddit
3 They are a cartel and are price fixing.
jenny_905@reddit
It's the fact they all just openly admit to cartel behaviour that really gets me, they'll put out press releases saying production is to be slowed to bring the price back up etc.
Thathathatha@reddit
I got a 2 x 16GB kit back in June for free for buying a motherboard. That same kit is selling for over $200 now. Wild.
Intrepid_Lecture@reddit
Glad I got in my 96GB of DDR5 and 64GB of DDR4 purchases a few months ago. TOTALLY timed the marked.
Auxilae@reddit
Same here. Bought a kit of 96GB Corsair DDR5-6000 RAM for $339.99 off Amazon. Same kit is going for $586.99 now.
nisaaru@reddit
these current prices are probably still based on DDR5 stock the dealers just adapted to the current price rally. If that stock runs out and they need new DDR5 we will see how ugly it really gets.
comperr@reddit
I didn’t realize i was timing the market, but i sorted by highest price for 96GB DDR5 and thought "oh wow cheap" considering the last time I bought RAM was 2018. That $354 kit is now $999 if you can even find it in stock. DDR4 was so cheap at the beginning of the year i got 128GB mostly because the RGB started failing in that 64GB RAM I got in 2018
SirMaster@reddit
Doesn’t really seem that bad to me. I see 32GB 6000 CL30 for $175 today.
5 years ago when I built my still current PC, 32GB of 4000 CL15 cost me $350 which is literally double the price of decent 32GB today.
jecowa@reddit
Six months ago I got 2x32 GB 6000 CL30 for 205$.
Admirable_Bid2917@reddit
That comparison is lacking a bit though.
4000C15 was pretty much the cream of the crop when you go by bins, like 8200C38 is as of now.
6000C30 is very much the new 3200C16, and that would have been significantly less in 2020 than 350 bucks.
Sopel97@reddit
just 2x more expensive than a year ago
Jaidon24@reddit
I got 48GB at a faster transfer for less than that this year.
jecowa@reddit
The RAM I bought in May for 205$ is now going for 450$.
noiserr@reddit
Glad I got my 128GB Strix Halo.
Sevastous-of-Caria@reddit
Its 2015 again yay? I wonder we see monstrosities like gtx1060 5gig successors like rtx 6060 7 gig or 9 gig :)
Blueberryburntpie@reddit
And 2020 again.
Sevastous-of-Caria@reddit
Dram shortage ≠ GPU shortage. But if prices go up on cards the result will be the same
mcmrikus@reddit
You need both to build out a new PC, so doesn't matter if it's column A or column B, you're still taking one in the shorts
Blueberryburntpie@reddit
RAM prices also shot up during 2020-2021 as part of the massive spike in computer purchases for the work-from-home.
thegenregeek@reddit
A couple of weeks (Oct 15th or so) back I bought a 128GB (2x64) DDR5 6400 kit for about $445. Based on reports that prices would increase. (Plus there being a Amazon monthly payment plan)
That same kit is now sold out at Amazon and Microcenter. While it's available on Newegg for $715 and $701 on Corsair's website.
Absurdity.
Rift_Xuper@reddit
ohh I'm lucky I have 48Gb DDR4 3200! 5900X is good enough for me.
lifestealsuck@reddit
Nvidia super next year not affected right ? Right ?
PastaPandaSimon@reddit
Memory sticks are a low single digit percentage of the retail price for something like a 5080 Super.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Goes to show that the only difference between consumer DDR5 and much more expensive server RDIMMs is the RCD and PMIC chips. The days of binning better chips for enterprise is long behind us, it's just them reallocating chips to sell to business consumers at a higher margin.
Quatro_Leches@reddit
Sk Hynix and micron stock up big
snowfordessert@reddit
Jaislight@reddit
Ai may not turn into skynet but it's still killing us.
jhenryscott@reddit
I think my memory shortage is just from getting old
imaginary_num6er@reddit
Hopefully this forces AMD to use the same memory controller as Zen 5 on Zen 6, to keep RAM costs low for new PC builders.
CheesyRamen66@reddit
I don’t think Zen 6 is expected to support DDR6 and it’s not like Zen 5 supports DDR4 so why does it matter? It’ll be DDR5 either way
imaginary_num6er@reddit
Lower DDR5 clocks = cheaper sticks
mediandude@reddit
AMD is still selling 2nd generation Ryzen cpus.
Any processor family has at least 6 years lifetime.
Seanspeed@reddit
A better memory controller doesn't restrict you from buying a cheaper set of memory. :/
iDontSeedMyTorrents@reddit
You can just buy slower sticks. You don't need AMD to not improve their memory controller.
CheesyRamen66@reddit
True but this might just be a short spike, we have another year until Zen 6 launches
dabocx@reddit
Using a newer memory controller on Zen 6 that supports faster memory doesn't mean you will be forced to use it.
If you want to use DDR5 5200 or whatever on Zen 6 you'll be able to.
a_man_of_mold@reddit
New IMC is sorely needed by AMD for existing DDR5. No way Zen 6 will use DDR6.
greggm2000@reddit
Agreed. We probably won’t see DDR6 on Desktop until around 2030, which would put it around the Zen 8 timeframe, or possibly Zen 7, if CPU timelines get stretched a bit, as is rumored.
greggm2000@reddit
Why would you want to see the same memory controller (IOdie) that we’ve had on Zen 4 and 5, on Zen 6 as well? Doing that would degrade performance compared to what would otherwise be the case. Regardless, the rumors out there point to Zen 6 having a new memory controller, as well as 50% more cores per CCD and other things.