DRAM prices are expected to climb sharply in the third quarter of 2025, with increases of up to 45% depending on the product, according to TrendForce. This price surge will reportedly be driven by capacity reallocations, product phase-outs, and demand from both AI servers and seasonal consumer trends. Notably, outgoing types of memory will experience the highest increases. However, the TrendForce analysis does not include 25% U.S. import tariffs on products from Japan and Korea.
Prices of DDR5, the most popular type of mainstream DRAM today, for both client and server applications are expected to rise moderately by 3% to 8%, while LPDDR5X used in mobile devices is projected to increase by 5% to 10% amid seasonal restocking and constrained supply, according to TrendForce. GDDR7 — which is still in early adoption stages, but whose production is ramping up rapidly — is forecast to see a smaller price uptick of 0% to 5% as suppliers begin reallocating capacity from GDDR6 to support next-generation GPUs.
By contrast, prices of previous-generation types of memory are going to increase considerably. DDR4 prices are set to surge meaningfully due to tightening supply and end-of-life programs started at major DRAM makers, with PC DDR4 projected to rise by 38% to 43% and server DDR4 by 28% to 33%, according to TrendForce. LPDDR4X, facing rapid supply withdrawal and strong restocking demand, is expected to jump by 23% to 28%. GDDR6 will also see substantial price increases of 28% to 33% as suppliers shift focus to GDDR7, which will create short-term shortages amid ongoing GPU restocking.
Interestingly, GDDR6 is currently used by AMD's latest-generation Radeon RX 9060/9070-series products as well as entry-level and previous-generation graphics cards from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. All of these add-in-boards are aimed at price-conscious market segments, so it remains to be seen how price hikes of GDDR6 will affect pricing of AMD's latest Radeon RX 9060/9070-series products, as well as cheaper graphics cards based on AMD's, Intel's, or Nvidia's GPUs.
TrendForce also expects pricing of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to increase by 15% to 20% in Q3 2025, which reflects strong demand from AI accelerators for data centers. This marks a notable acceleration from the 5% to 10% growth seen in the previous quarter, which is likely caused by strong demand driven by the ramp of Nvidia's B300-series AI GPUs that pack 288GB of HBM3E memory onboard (compared to 192GB of HBM3E in case of Nvidia's B200-series processors).
TrendForce estimates that HBM's share of the total DRAM market is also slowly rising, reaching a share of 10%, up from 9% in Q2, which reflects growing adoption of HBM3E in general and ramp of AMD's and Nvidia's latest AI accelerators (MI350X, B300/Blackwell Ultra) specifically with 288GB of HBM3E memory onboard.
It should be noted that the PC DRAM segment is under pressure from both demand and geopolitical factors. Some OEMs are rushing orders in anticipation of U.S. import tariff increases, but major DRAM makers have reduced PC DRAM output in favor of server-grade and HBM products. Keeping in mind that 25% tariffs on all types of memory made in Japan and South Korea will be imposed starting August 1, it is inevitable that prices of PC DRAMs — including DDR, GDDR, and LPDDR — will go up significantly starting next month. The same will happen to server DRAMs, though tariffs will likely affect server memory a little later than PC memory.
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