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

[Nelly]

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.

Source: TechPowerUp | CTEE

 

[Nelly]

Last week I spent £319 on 64GB CL30 6000 DDR5

lol i got lucky and got 96gb of 6000 cl30 a week or so ago for 200 quid
i need to get it tested asap as it seems too good to be true lol

Just curious, which ones did you purchase? Brand and code? It will be interesting to see how much they keep rising over the months.

Makes you wonder if at least one manufacturer will increase production, they will then sell more and make more money even at a reduced price compared to the other manufacturers, then maybe they will follow suit as well, we shall see.

 

[Nelly]

When it bursts, we’re probably not going to be worried about upgrading our computers for a good while…

Doesn't sound too good that, well the next 5 years at least. We might see motherboard and CPU prices reduce, as less people purchase at increased RAM prices though? GPU prices increase though due to using RAM.

Edit: I think I read the other day Micron are building a new manufacturing facility in New York as well as somewhere else in the USA? Pity they didn't keep the one in Scotland open, wish we had a UK owned manufacturer, would be sold off though like everything else in the backward thinking UK to foreign countries.

 

[Nelly]

Nanya currently developing DDR5 lines, industrial and commercial >> https://www.nanya.com/en/Product/List/450/2478

 

[Nelly]

Every little helps!

However, searching gets me that Nanya currently have 94,000 wafer starts per month. Their new DDR5-capable fab well eventually have - once phase 3 is completed - add 45,000 wafer starts.

A second search says Nanya currently have about 1% of the market.

Therefore, even once that new fab is fully running, they will have less than 2% marketshare.

Like I said, every little helps but to actually make a real difference one of the three big players would have to increase production.

I'm sure eventually the three will build more capacity but they are all enjoying huge margins ATM. And all three have been seriously burned in the past with huge losses from excess capacity.

I'm glad you did some digging, as I didn't lol. Good info that, I remember Corsair used to use Nanya chips in the past.

It's like bog roll gate in covid times, everyone panic buying RAM instead of toilet roll.

Edit: Bought this on November 6th, still steep but better than prices right now. I'll buy 64 GB or more when I really need it.

 

[Nelly]

Global DRAM Revenue Jumps 30.9% in 3Q25, Micron's Market Share Climbs by 3.7 Percentage Points

TrendForce's latest research shows that significant increases in conventional DRAM contract prices, higher bit shipments, and growing HBM volumes drove the global DRAM industry revenue to US$41.4 billion in 3Q25, marking a strong 30.9% QoQ growth.

Looking ahead to Q4 2025, DRAM suppliers' inventories are almost depleted, and growth in bit shipments will decrease substantially. Regarding pricing, CSPs continue to be relatively flexible with procurement costs, which causes other applications to also increase their prices to secure supply. Consequently, contract prices for both advanced and legacy nodes, as well as across all major applications, are anticipated to increase rapidly. TrendForce predicts that conventional DRAM contract prices will rise by 45-50% QoQ, and total contract prices (including DRAM and HBM) will increase by 50-55%.

TechPowerUP: Read full story
Source: TrendForce

 

[Nelly]

I was really tempted to buy a new machine and use my current for a dedicated sim rig next year.

Guess that has been put on hold a couple of years.

Thing is the entire market will suffer. Sales of other components will decline as no one wants to spend £600 on RAM to build a new machine.

Overclockers UK and the rest of them could go out of business.

 

[Nelly]

So let's find an old school 5080 equivalent, the 8800 GTX.
The 8800 GTX in 2007, was £480 MSRP on launch, that equates to £837.45 in todays money - which is nearly double the '£500 for a high-end card' that you've claimed.

"8 November 2006, 18:58
this SKU will sell for around £480 at a host of etailers, so it's not cheap, but technology leadership rarely is.
The summary is straightforward for once. If you want the absolute fastest graphics card available, right now, the GeForce 8800 GTX is it."

Bought my OCZ 8800GTX with lifetime international warranty for £300 direct from the USA, exchange rate was a lot better back then as well, around $2 vs £1.

 

[Nelly]

That's got nothing to do with the UK pricing from a UK shop though

I didn't even say it was, just shopped around for the cheapest card with good warranty, mind you OCZ went out of business in 2013, already sold on and upgraded 8 times before that happend, more disposable income back then living with mummy and daddy.

 

[Nelly]

On my old system, using 6GB out of 8GB on Watcher of Realms. Thousands of games out there that don't need above 8GB, I bet loads of people have games they have never played including me. I've played two games everyday practically over the last 5-6 years.

Plenty of companies running their office machines on 4GB of DDR2 / DDR3 for Excel, even housing associations, councils etc having worked for them, you don't need a lot of Ram for MS office etc.

Other national organisations using ChromeOS on their PC's and Chromebooks with google apps only for office with only 4GB Ram as well, don't need more than that for their internal database programs.

 

[Nelly]

Can't be that bad, considering OCUK's lead buyer has multiple incredibly expensive supercars ...

I wish I had stuck with doing procurement like I did in the mid 90s/2000's, I took over from a guy doing it with over 40 years experience since the 1950s. I would love to see one person get along with having to manually do it for over 150,000 products, 1 million! products by 2008 with a Luckins Electrical price guide (3ft width! thicker than a bible!) and have the product knowledge to do purchases with, as well as do the costings for local day works (profit margin 20%) and millions of pounds contracts - Chemical companies, well known retailers, MoD, blue chip etc. Price updates were sent via postal mail on a weekly basis, having to replace various pages. Oh and get lumbered with having to check invoice price discrepancies, and discounts.

We used to get decent rebates from the big electrical / cable companies in the UK and Europe, once we broke a certain tier of £ purchases. I would presume its similar with companies like Intel etc.