32GB of DDR5 6000 RAM now costs $400 — the latest price hike puts DIY PC building further out of reach than ever before
A memory record no one asked for
When it comes to building a gaming PC, DDR5 RAM clocked at speeds of 6,000 MT/s is often touted as the sweet spot for specs. While slower and faster speeds are available, it's very much the benchmark for both price and performance, which is why it's noteworthy that this particular configuration now costs $400, a more than 400% increase from the low prices we've seen in the past.
In addition to our ongoing RAM price tracking, we perform daily spot checks on pricing for discounts or deals for 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR5 RAM, given its aforementioned significance as the "benchmark" when it comes to capacity. In recent weeks, the price of 32GB DDR5 6000 RAM has been creeping ever closer to that unfortunate $400 milestone, and in the last few hours we've just crossed the threshold. That's not to say that prices might fluctuate back down in a day or two, but generally the traffic is only moving in one direction.
You can buy 32GB of DDR5 RAM at slower speeds for less — this Corsair Vengeance DDR5 4800 is "just" $359 — but good RAM is now harder (and more expensive) to come by than ever before.
According to data from PCPartPicker, this particular 32GB DDR5 6000 kit from Corsair has been as little as $80 in years gone by at Newegg, marking a full 400% price increase on the lowest we've ever seen on this model.
RAM prices elsewhere have climbed by as much as 500%, with 128GB of DDR5 now costing $3,399 in stores. The causes of the PC component crisis are numerous and well-documented. AI buildouts are consuming much of the world's NAND and flash manufacturing capacity, which is having a knock-on effect for consumer production. Famously, Micron even wound up its consumer brand Crucial in favor of serving more enterprise customers.
All signs point to the memory shortage, and thereby pricing, getting worse in the coming months. As such, bundles and pre-built PCs remain one of the only ways to insulate yourself from cost increases if you're in the market for new hardware. As mentioned, slower memory speeds are available at lower prices, but compromising for 4,800 MT/s RAM to save $40 when building a PC is an extremely tough state of affairs.
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Stephen is Tom's Hardware's News Editor with almost a decade of industry experience covering technology, having worked at TechRadar, iMore, and even Apple over the years. He has covered the world of consumer tech from nearly every angle, including supply chain rumors, patents, and litigation, and more. When he's not at work, he loves reading about history and playing video games.
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TheTonicmole Personally, I'm finding the DIY segment far more interesting. A lot of innovation is happening to work around high ram prices. We're seeing considerably more optimization than in the past 10 years, squeezing more power out of older platforms. It's also slowly forcing people to look passed marketing hype and actually plan out their system instead of throwing money at it.Reply -
SkyBill40 I had an idea a while back about building a new system and using parts from my old one as I usually do. However, with the price escalation and general stagflation of things, the likelihood I build another is pretty much zero. I'm perfectly satisfied with the build I have and though it would be nicer to get to the peak of my mountain and really showcase what my equipment would allow, I just can't do it.Reply
I've had an anti-AI stance for the longest time and the pandering, money hungry companies forgoing the retail consumer space for the focused AI enterprise crowd was just the last straw. -
Gurg With AMD m/b longevity and the spiralling of RAM, SSD, and GPU prices, I'm looking more at a CPU upgrade for my 9600x PC. With the new AMD desktop CPUs coming out next year, it will be interesting to see the performance improvements and cost as well as what their introduction does to the higher level 9 series pricing. Prices on the 9900x and 9850x3d are already becoming much more attractive.Reply
I bought higher performance DDR5 and M.2 SSD two years ago when I last upgraded. -
yankees992012 Thank goodness I bought 32Gb of RAM earlier this year. This is getting ridiculous.Reply -
torbendalum I upgraded the parts in my computer about a year ago, just 2 months before the prices started to go up, i bought 64GB DDR5 6400 MT/S cl32 RAM and at the time I thought, that is a lot of money to spend on memory, maybe I should just buy 32. I am so glad I went for 64 GB as the kit I bought is now 5 times as expensive and it will last for some years.Reply -
Vicecrow Still kicking the old ddr4 at 4000mhz. Will waiting for the ddr6. The 14700 is a monster Will last tive more years till become slow.Reply -
jahswii This is just corporate velociraptors testing the fences. Prices for everything will continue to rise until they hit a threshold where people react with their money (not just their e-fingers). Then they will drop prices just a tiny bit to make everyone feel like they are our saviors.... and itll work because the bulk of consumers are that gullible...Reply -
usertests Reply
$/GB is the important number for the RAM commodity, not the total price. It will go down as supply and demand normalizes, and density increases lower the cost per bit of production.jahswii said:This is just corporate velociraptors testing the fences. Prices for everything will continue to rise until they hit a threshold where people react with their money (not just their e-fingers). Then they will drop prices just a tiny bit to make everyone feel like they are our saviors.... and itll work because the bulk of consumers are that gullible...
What's going to be bad is if we can't upgrade RAM in most devices, if CAMM doesn't take off in consumer-oriented laptops. -
beyondlogic the fun part is it isn't just the price of memory its storage 32gb of ddr5 at 400 usd taking the biscuit though at worst the other pc parts will become cheaper when no one buys them hell in uk there bundling cards and psus together to move them.Reply