What were ram prices like before this current boom?

Posted by SuicidalFinnikin@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 400 comments

I last built a PC back in 2015 for gaming when I was a teenager, which was the last time I really kept up with PC hardware. Since then I have drifted away from gaming as I have gotten older and ended up using PCs mainly for work and study. I bought a laptop early last year, but that did not really pull me back into the PC parts world.

Recently my work has started pushing me toward a desktop that is more powerful than my laptop so it can handle heavier workloads. Because of that, I have been paying attention to PC pricing again and honestly got a bit of a shock.

In late October and early November I was eyeing off a system and was seriously considering buying it. However, because Black Friday was so close, I figured it made sense to wait and see what deals would be available.

The build I was looking at had an R7-9800X3D, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, and an RTX 5080. At the time it was listed for $2,788. When I checked again during Black Friday in November, that same system had jumped to almost $4,000 (the cheapest anywhere after some extensive research) and has stayed around that price since, which was pretty surprising given it was meant to be a sale period.

After digging a bit deeper, I have seen a lot of discussion about RAM prices increasing, which seems like it could explain part of the jump. That made me curious what RAM prices were like before this current boom. Were the late October prices already elevated, or is this a more recent spike?

I am in Australia, so all prices are in AUD.