Lexar's Regional Manager for Australia & New Zealand, Chris Xia, said that he personally thinks RAM prices are expected to double by the end of the year. While there have been a few instances of RAM module prices stabilizing and even some retailers selling them for a discount or bundled with other PC parts, he said that this is just sellers making an effort to make their inventory move and make way for new stocks, which are expected to be priced higher.
The current AI build-out is siphoning all the memory chips available from the traditional big three suppliers — Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron — with nearly all production capacity getting allocated towards high-bandwidth memory. Consumers are getting left behind, and as supplies dry up, their prices continue to go up.
Sapphire PR manager Edward Crisler said last December 2025 that DRAM prices will begin to stabilize in the next six to eight months, albeit at higher prices. However, the situation seems to have changed, and industry insiders now expect prices to continue going up towards the end of the year. Xia said that industry costs take up to eight to nine months to affect consumer prices, and the current market pricing trend has only been going up.
Some consumers get hope when they see RAM kits getting discounts or retailers lowering the list prices of these items, but Chris said that these are often the result of sellers trying to get rid of old inventory. They do this so that they can get some liquidity back and to make way for new stocks coming in from suppliers, usually at a higher price. Another thing that adds to the confusion is that some distributors manage to get their hands on unsold inventory from other regions that are still priced lower compared to what’s arriving now. Because of this, they’re able to sell at a lower price — but only until supplies last. Once the old stock runs out, they will eventually be forced to increase retail prices as market forces catch up with the low supply and high demand. Xia recommends that if you need to buy RAM, you should buy it now. Don’t wait for lower prices as they won’t arrive for years to come.
The memory chip crisis is going beyond desktop computers and laptops, which are expected to see shipments contract by more than 10%. Motherboard sales have already collapsed by more than 25% as the increasing RAM and SSD prices are making enthusiasts think twice before building a new system. Smartphones are expected to either get more expensive or see lower and slower memory configurations, and even action camera manufacturer GoPro is in trouble due to memory chip shortages and lower sales.
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