Will RAM Prices Go Down? Forecast and Outlook

The short answer

Not soon, if the memory makers are right. TrendForce, Micron and SK hynix all expect supply to stay tight through 2027, and Micron's CEO expects demand to stay ahead of supply in 2028 as well. The one well known voice that expects relief is Acer's CEO, who thinks PC prices will peak in the first half of 2027 and then ease. So the honest answer is that the forecasters disagree, and most of them say not yet.

This page is part of our RAMageddon explainer. If you want the causes behind the surge, read why RAM is so expensive. Here we look ahead: who expects what for late 2026, 2027 and 2028, and what that means if you need a kit.

What the forecasters expect

The table sums up the forecasts we could trace to a named source. All of them are projections, not facts, and they do not all measure the same thing.

TrendForce is the most specific. In its September 30, 2026 release it expects conventional DRAM contract prices to climb another 10% to 15% quarter on quarter in the fourth quarter, with the market still undersupplied. The pace has slowed since the third quarter forecast of 13% to 18%, but slower growth is still growth. TrendForce also expects server DRAM contract prices to keep rising every quarter through the second half of 2027.

Micron is the most pessimistic of the makers. On its September 30, 2026 earnings call, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said demand will exceed supply in both 2027 and 2028, with conditions tighter than in 2026, and that he sees no line of sight to a balanced market, Tom's Hardware reported. CIO reported from the same call that Micron has already committed more than 75% of its 2027 output.

SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung expects the shortage to peak in 2027 and supply to stay tight through 2030, according to TechSpot. The same report says Adata's chairman expects prices to stay high for another decade.

Why the forecasts disagree

Acer CEO Jason Chen told DigiTimes, as reported by TechSpot, that he expects PC prices to rise 5% to 20% in late 2026, peak in the first half of 2027 and then ease. He points to cheaper supply from Chinese makers such as CXMT and argues that the shortage is limited to high end parts. CXMT reached a 10% share of global DRAM revenue in the second quarter of 2026, BusinessKorea reports, which made it the fourth largest DRAM maker. Note that Chen talks about PC prices, not the price of a memory kit.

The memory makers look at a different customer. TrendForce projects that the nine largest cloud providers will spend about US$957 billion on capex in 2026 and more than US$1.5 trillion in 2027, and it names memory shortages as one reason AI server racks are getting more expensive. It also estimates that DRAM and NAND will take 68% of major cloud providers' capex in 2027. As long as that money keeps flowing, makers have little reason to move wafers back to desktop kits.

New factories are part of the debate too. Micron's first new Idaho fab was expected to start producing in mid 2027, and SK hynix targets early 2027 for the first cleanroom at its Yongin cluster. But high bandwidth memory for AI chips is expected to take nearly 30% of DRAM wafer capacity in 2027, up from about 20% in September 2026, DigiTimes reports. Our reading is that new capacity serves servers first, so a new fab does not mean cheaper desktop DDR5 straight away.

What the market shows right now

The open market gives no sign of a turn yet. TrendForce put the benchmark DDR4 chip at US$46.32 on October 6, 2026, with spot trading sluggish and prices moving largely sideways. That is about twice the level of late December 2025 and close to eight times the level of late September 2025. Sideways at that height is a pause, not a drop.

Laptops show the same pressure. TrendForce expects global notebook shipments to shrink by a low single digit percentage in 2027, or by a high single digit percentage if DRAM and CPU prices stay high and brands pass the costs on. In a mainstream notebook with a US$900 suggested price, CPU, DRAM and SSD made up about 68% of the bill of materials in the third quarter of 2026, by TrendForce's estimate.

Our own US figures from Adorama, Amazon.com, B&H Photo, Best Buy, Corsair.com, Newegg and Walmart show where kit prices stand. The table uses the latest check on November 2, 2026; prices are excluding sales tax.

Change in the median DDR5 desktop price per GB over 12 weeks: not measured yet. Change since October 13, 2026: not measured yet. Our US tracking is young, so a turn will take weeks to show here. The RAM price chart adds each new week as it comes in.

Should you buy now or wait?

If your PC is broken or you need more memory for work, buy now. None of the forecasts above point to a lower price in the next few months, and TrendForce's outlook for the fourth quarter points the other way. Shop prices follow contract and spot prices with a lag of weeks to months, so even a turn in the wholesale market would take time to reach the shelf.

If the upgrade is a nice to have, waiting costs you little. Just be clear about the bet you are making: you are siding with Acer's CEO against the memory makers. Set a price you are willing to pay and check it every few weeks.

Either way, buy the capacity you need and no more. Compare kits by price per GB on the DDR5 price page, or across all RAM prices if your board takes DDR4. A matched kit of two sticks is the usual choice for a desktop.

Planning a new laptop instead? Many thin laptops use soldered memory that you cannot upgrade later, and TrendForce expects brands may trim memory to hold prices. Check the spec sheet and buy enough RAM up front.

What we do not know yet

• Whether Acer's CEO or the memory makers turn out to be right about 2027.
• How much of the new fab capacity from 2027 goes to consumer DDR5 rather than HBM and server memory.
• Whether cheaper supply from CXMT and other smaller makers reaches US shops in volume.
• Whether cloud spending grows as fast as TrendForce projects, or slows.
• How long a drop in contract or spot prices would take to show up in US shops.