DRAM Prices Surge 172% YoY with No Signs of Slowing Down

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Nelly

Nelly

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TechPowerUp | Posted on 6 November 2025 said:
Toward the end of last month, we reported a notable disruption in the memory supply chain. Manufacturers retroactively increased RDIMM prices by 40-50% just in August, despite hyperscalers signing agreements at much lower prices. This change is now rapidly affecting consumers. According to the latest report from CTEE, DRAM prices have surged 171.8% year-over-year, making this "commodity" one of the most valuable assets for applications ranging from data centers to home builds. If you're building a PC and notice that your desired memory kit's price has skyrocketed, you're not alone. The DRAM shortage has driven these modules to sky-high price levels. This is attributed to the demand for AI consuming the entire memory and storage supply as data center expansion continues.

To make the point even more worrisome, South Korean memory giants like Samsung and SK Hynix are unable to fulfill all orders, with only 70% of them being completed. This is pushing Tier-1 U.S. and Chinese cloud order books to an effective 70% fill rate and eliminating the safety stock that most buyers believed they had secured. Module manufacturers such as Kingston and ADATA are now paying $13 for 16 GB DDR5 chips that cost $7 just six weeks ago, an increase significant enough to erase their entire gross margin. Even more concerning is the fact that smaller OEMs and channel distributors have been told to expect only 35-40% fulfillment through the first quarter of 2026. This not only delays their planned product rollouts but also jeopardizes their expected revenue streams if the situation persists. They face the choice of either gambling on the spot market for a massive markup or leaving their production lines idle.

Looking at popular websites like *********, which has a **** ******* for almost anything, we notice that a sample G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 memory kit used to be priced at roughly $106, and now it is listed at $239 on Newegg. From this alone we can confirm that the price increase has indeed occurred, and that we can only hope that the situation improves. However, hope is not enough. ADATA's CEO Chen Libai has boldly declared that the final quarter of this year marks the launch of a significant upward trend in the memory sector, simultaneously signaling the beginning of supply constraints. Similarly, Phison Electronics CEO Pua Khein-Seng claims that the NAND flash shortage could last an entire decade.
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Source: TechPowerUp | CTEE
 
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Aye.

I have been sourcing parts for my sons pc and left ram towards the end (regretting it now) 4 weeks ago I seen mutiple bundles for sub £90 of various specs and timings. Everything under £130 roughly is now sold out and its getting worse.
 
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I think you have been lucky and I really hope these preorders will be filled but my fear is it will be weeks and months and the price will change before they are in stock.6000mhz is very noticeable just now. Please compare some sites. Just to add white ram seemed to remain cheaper for longer as its not as popular.
 
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I think AI is having an effect ... there have been articles saying that the big AI projects are likely to take upto 40% of all RAM production next year. As a comparison few years ago the company I worked for were trying to expand their server farm but was hampered as they couldn't get 10-15TB HDDs as then Google/Azure/AWS were going to the manufacturers and buying up all their entire production of data centre sized HDDs leaving none for anyone smaller.
I've also just read an article saying shops in Japan's Akihaibara are limiting number of DIMMs and SSDs people can buy as their supplies are drying up.
 
It's my fault. I was finally planning to upgrade my PC 2500k motherboard at the end of the month, when I should have a few hundred quid spare on a basic but perfectly adequate for my needs, last-ish generation upgrade. Looks like I may be waiting a while longer to leave DDR3-land. :D

Fortunately, I'm fairly patient, and the [email protected]/16GB/1070 still handles everything I throw at it remarkably well at 1080p. It just hangs regularly at boot, and the novelty's worn off. Microsoft's extra year of Win10 security support takes the pressure off though.
 
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I was looking at some DDR5 sodimms on account of a minisforum mini pc getting a bit weird, the usual suspects were selling a 16gb stick for 90 quid while small pc shops that do repairs n stuff are still selling for 40 quid, apparently they didn't get the message.

Decided I'm not playing this game, went for option C, which was to downclock the memory. Passed the memory tests it was failing at normal speed.
 
Hotwired said:
I was looking at some DDR5 sodimms on account of a minisforum mini pc getting a bit weird, the usual suspects were selling a 16gb stick for 90 quid while small pc shops that do repairs n stuff are still selling for 40 quid, apparently they didn't get the message.

Decided I'm not playing this game, went for option C, which was to downclock the memory. Passed the memory tests it was failing at normal speed.
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Yes, I was looking for 64GB DDR5 (6000MHz CL30) which I'd watched go from £180 in the summer to £299 ... then I spotted a high street retailer (who I wouldn't think of for PC components) still listed it at £219 - and Quidco were offering me a £20 bonus to order something from them so got it for £199. My purchase may have caused their system to do a price check as the next day it was on sale for £299.
 
deshepherd said:
I think AI is having an effect ... there have been articles saying that the big AI projects are likely to take upto 40% of all RAM production next year. As a comparison few years ago the company I worked for were trying to expand their server farm but was hampered as they couldn't get 10-15TB HDDs as then Google/Azure/AWS were going to the manufacturers and buying up all their entire production of data centre sized HDDs leaving none for anyone smaller.
I've also just read an article saying shops in Japan's Akihaibara are limiting number of DIMMs and SSDs people can buy as their supplies are drying up.
Click to expand...
Another article today saying enterprise grade HDDs are in very short supply again ... upto 24 months lead time for TLC drives so the hyperscalers are having to move into the QLC market now to meet short term demand.
Basically the issue is Google/AWS/Azure are going to the manufacturers, asking what next years production run of the devices they want will be and asking how much it would cost to buy it all.
 
oh its deffo ram its sat on my desk i just dont have an am5 platform build to test it out yet lol
luckily i did get it from a reputable retailer [i got it from ocuk lol so should be fine tbh]
 
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