RAM Price Increase: How Much Have Prices Risen?

How much have RAM prices risen?

RAM now costs several times what it did in mid 2025. For US shoppers the clearest figure comes from retail kits: PCPartPicker data, as reported by TechPowerUp, put DDR5 kits 372% to 485% higher in August 2026 than a year earlier. DDR4 kits were up 120% to 177% over the same twelve months.

Single kits show what that means at the checkout. In the same data, a 64GB DDR5-6000 kit went from $222 to $1,272. PCMag, also citing PCPartPicker, followed a Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5-6000 kit from about $90 in July 2025 to about $200 by early November 2025, and that was before the steepest quarter of the climb.

This page is about the size of the increase. For the full story of the shortage behind it, read our RAMageddon explainer.

The increase step by step

The table lists the main measured increases since 2025, with the type of price and the period each figure covers. The figures come from outside sources, not from our own price checks.

The climb started with DDR4. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron all moved to end DDR4 production in 2025, and Tom's Hardware reported that DDR4 open market prices jumped by as much as 50% in May 2025. In September 2025 Micron stopped giving quotes on DDR4, DDR5, LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 after telling partners prices would go up 20% to 30%, according to PCMag.

The end of 2025 brought the consumer side into the news. On December 3, 2025, Micron announced it would leave the Crucial consumer business to supply AI data center customers. Around the same time, US system builders CyberpowerPC and Maingear raised their prices for December 2025 because of memory costs, Tom's Guide reported.

Then came the record quarter. TrendForce measured conventional DRAM contract prices up about 93% to 98% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the quarter before. After that the gains became smaller: TrendForce's forecast for the third quarter was 13% to 18%, as PC and phone makers hit what it called an affordability limit and the high base kicked in.

Why the percentages differ so much

Headlines quote very different numbers for the same shortage because they measure different prices. A contract price is what memory makers and large buyers such as PC makers, server makers and cloud providers agree on, usually per quarter. A spot price is what chips and modules trade for on the open market between traders, module makers and distributors. It reacts faster and sits closer to what shops pay.

The retail price is what you pay for a kit, and it follows the other two with a delay of weeks to months. That is why a kit can look reasonable in one shop and expensive in the next during the same week: one is still selling older stock, the other has already restocked at the new cost.

The base matters too. A yearly change measured from a cheap month looks larger than one measured from a month that was already high. When you compare numbers, check which product, which market and which period they cover.

What US shops charge this week

These are the current figures from our latest US price run on November 2, 2026, at Adorama, Amazon.com, B&H Photo, Best Buy, Corsair.com, Newegg and Walmart. Prices are excluding sales tax.

Our own trend line is still short, because US tracking started in October 2026. Change of the median DDR5 desktop price per GB over 4 weeks: not measured yet. Change since October 13, 2026: not measured yet. These figures measure what happened after our tracking began, not the increase described above.

Every kit with its shop is on our RAM prices page, and the RAM price chart shows how the weekly figures move over time.

Are RAM prices still going up?

Contract prices are still climbing, but more slowly. In its September 30, 2026 release, TrendForce expected conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 10% to 15% in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the market still undersupplied and PC makers buying ahead because they expect tight supply in 2027.

The spot market has calmed down without turning. TrendForce reported the benchmark DDR4 chip at $46.357 on October 20, 2026, a gain of 0.84% on the week, and described DDR5 spot supply as tight. That chip price is close to eight times its level of late September 2025.

The outlook for 2027 is where forecasts split. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said on September 30, 2026 that demand will exceed supply in 2027 and 2028, with tighter conditions than in 2026. Acer CEO Jason Chen expects PC prices to peak in the first half of 2027 and then ease, helped by cheaper Chinese supply. Our RAM price forecast compares these views, and why RAM is so expensive covers the causes.

How to buy RAM while prices are high

Buy the amount you need now rather than a size you might grow into. For gaming and general use, a matched two stick kit such as 2 x 16GB runs in dual channel and is the usual choice; the 32GB price page lists those kits from cheapest up.

Compare on price per GB, not only on the kit price. Larger kits sometimes cost less per GB, and the gap between the cheapest and the median kit in the table above shows how much a careful search can save.

What we do not know yet

• How fast new memory factories reach full output, and how much of it goes to desktop and laptop RAM instead of AI and server memory.
• Whether the slower contract price gains of late 2026 carry through to shop prices, given that retail follows with a delay.
• Which of the 2027 forecasts is right: continued tightness, as Micron expects, or easing after a peak, as Acer's CEO expects.