In recent months, RAM prices have skyrocketed, moving from the cheapest part of your PC to about the price of a graphics card. In early 2025, 32 GB of DDR5 went for about $130; now, those same kits can exceed $300, over twice the price just a year ago. To put that in perspective, an RX 6600 GPU with 8 GB of VRAM costs about $280; similarly, an RTX 3060 GPU with the same amount of VRAM costs roughly $320. So, what happened to RAM, and why is it so expensive? It all boils down to one thing: artificial intelligence.
AI Companies
At the end of 2025, RAM manufacturers decided to stop selling new products and to limit most, if not all, of their production to AI companies, which in turn paused selling to the public. With the end of public production, RAM became scarce, and all of a sudden, working RAM DDR3 or better inflated in price overnight. Whether it was 4GB of DDR3, 16GB of DDR4, or 8GB of DDR5, this crisis inflated RAM prices within the next month; since then, however, the prices have dropped, with some retailers such as Best Buy selling 16GB of DDR5 for $200, and Newegg.com sells 16GB of DDR4 for $130 instead of the $250+ back in November and December.