The 2026 RAM Crisis: Why Memory Prices Quadrupled and What Gamers Should Do

Quick Answers

Common questions answered at a glance

Why did RAM prices go up so much?

DRAM manufacturers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) are reallocating factory capacity from consumer memory to High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI data centers. Rest of World explains that the world's two biggest memory chipmakers, Samsung and SK Hynix, are prioritizing AI chips over the kinds used in laptops and PCs. Less supply for consumers. Same demand. Vertical prices.

When will prices drop?

What should I do right now?

If you've tried to buy RAM in 2026, you already know something is very wrong.A 32GB DDR5 kit that cost $90 last spring now costs $300–450. DDR4 isn't safe either — 32GB kits that were $60 are now pushing $280+. And it's not just RAM. SSDs, NAND flash, and storage prices are all climbing. As Bloomberg and Fortune reported on February 15th, tech leaders including Elon Musk and Tim Cook are now warning about a global memory chip crisis driven by AI demand.

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This isn't a normal price fluctuation. It's a full-blown supply crisis — and it's being driven by something most gamers never asked for.

What Happened

Starting in late 2025, RAM prices began climbing at a rate nobody expected. According to OriginalPricing.com, some memory kits have increased by 300–500% in just a few months. Tom's Hardware started publishing daily RAM price trackers to help consumers navigate the chaos.The cause is straightforward but massive in scale: the AI industry's demand for memory chips has consumed the global supply.Every new AI model, every data center expansion, every cloud computing buildout requires enormous amounts of specialized High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). As Introl's analysis explains, Micron's HBM capacity is sold out through all of 2026, gaming GPU production faces 40% cuts, and memory manufacturers are posting record margins exceeding 50%. These HBM chips are manufactured on the same production lines that make the DDR5 and DDR4 in your gaming PC. When Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron realized they could charge datacenter customers 10x more per chip for HBM than they could charge you for a gaming kit — the math was obvious. They retooled the factories.The result: consumer DRAM supply cratered. Prices went vertical.

The Timeline: How We Got Here

Mid-2025: RAM prices hit historic lows. A 32GB DDR5-6000 kit cost $80–120. DDR4 32GB kits were under $60. It was the best time to buy memory in a decade.Q3–Q4 2025: Prices begin rising sharply. Reports surface that AI datacenter orders are consuming 80%+ of new DRAM production. Samsung raises DDR5 contract prices by over 100%.December 3, 2025: The moment the PC community knew this was serious. Micron announced it was killing its consumer brand, Crucial, entirely — shifting all focus to enterprise and AI memory. After 29 years of serving PC builders, the Crucial brand was being wound down by February 2026. PCMag reported that Micron's VP argued this was somehow "good for consumers", claiming they'd still serve consumers through OEM channels. The community's response was about what you'd expect.January 2026: Prices reach 300–400% of mid-2025 levels. Team Group's General Manager publicly states the crisis "has only just started" and expects worse conditions in Q1–Q2 2026. Kingston warns that "prices will continue to go up through 2026." Micron's CEO confirms in a Q4 earnings call that shortages will persist "beyond 2026."February 2026: A DRAM industry analyst quoted by Tom's Guide originally predicted the shortage would end by 2028, but has since revised that estimate — saying it may take even longer. SEMI's data shows AI infrastructure investment expanding every year while DRAM production capacity fails to keep pace. TrendForce's February 4th DRAM Market Bulletin confirms: the seller's market persists, inventory is depleted, and contract prices are projected to rise significantly in the first half of the year.

How Bad Is It? The Numbers

Here's where prices stand as of mid-February 2026, compared to their mid-2025 lows:DDR4 32GB (2x16GB): Was $55–70. Now $250–350. Increase: ~400–500%.DDR5 32GB (2x16GB): Was $80–120. Now $300–500. Increase: ~300–400%.DDR4 64GB (2x32GB): Was $100–140. Now $500+. Some kits listed above $550 on PCPartPicker.DDR5 64GB (2x32GB): Was $150–200. Now $600–900+.As PCMag put it in their ongoing coverage: "The RAM Crisis Is Getting Worse." WCCFTech reports that some 256GB DDR4 kits are now retailing for over $3,000. Entry-level DDR5 32GB kits are routinely above $300.

The Community Response

The PC building community has responded with a mix of genuine concern and dark humor — which is how you know it's really bad.The dumpster diver. In early February 2026, a Reddit user posted that they'd traveled to their local dump to scavenge for hardware. They found $500 worth of DDR4 sticks in discarded office PCs. The post went viral. PC Gamer covered the story, and The Gamer ran a piece titled "Extremely High RAM Prices Have Driven People To Scavenging In Dumps For Hardware". That's where we are.The DDR4 revival. XDA Developers published a piece on February 15th titled "DDR4 systems quietly became the only sane choice in 2026". The author reflected on jumping to DDR5 in 2023 thinking it was "future-proof" — and now watching DDR4 platforms make a full comeback. The gaming performance difference between DDR4 and DDR5 is minimal at most resolutions, and the cost gap has made DDR4 the practical choice for anyone building on a budget.The used market boom. Refurbished RAM and used DDR4 from decommissioned office machines has become a legitimate buying strategy. Refurbished retailers are reporting surging demand as people look for any way to avoid paying retail prices.

Why This Isn't Going Away Anytime Soon

Here's the part nobody wants to hear. This isn't a temporary spike. The structural economics of the DRAM industry have fundamentally changed.Bloomberg's February 15th report describes a "growing procession of tech industry leaders" warning about a global memory crisis in the making. The problem is simple: the Big Three chipmakers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) have discovered that AI customers will pay 10x what consumers will for the same wafer capacity. Building HBM for NVIDIA's data center GPUs is dramatically more profitable than building DDR5 for your gaming rig. Every wafer allocated to HBM is a wafer taken away from your RAM kit.Rest of World's explainer frames it clearly: the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure is triggering a global memory chip shortage, as factories prioritize chips for hyperscalers over the kinds used in laptops and smartphones. New memory chip plants are being announced in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan — but all of them are designed to serve AI demand, not consumer relief.Here's what analysts are projecting:Q1–Q2 2026: Prices continue rising. Multiple industry executives have confirmed this on the record. TrendForce projects significant price growth in the first half of the year, with major manufacturers reporting depleted inventory and shifting capacity toward AI.Late 2026: Possible price stabilization — meaning prices stop going up, but don't come back down. New DRAM fab capacity takes 2–3 years from announcement to production.2027: Prices may begin easing if new fabrication capacity comes online. Samsung and SK Hynix both have expansion plans, but these are designed to serve AI demand.2028+: Potential return to more reasonable pricing — but "reasonable" almost certainly will never mean mid-2025 lows again. One analyst quoted by Tom's Guide initially said the shortage would last until 2028, but is now reconsidering whether even that was too optimistic.

What You Should Do

Whether you're building new, upgrading, or just trying to keep your current rig running well — here's what actually makes sense right now:1. Don't panic-buy at peak prices. Unless you literally cannot use your PC without more RAM, wait. Buying 32GB of DDR5 for $450 when it was $90 eight months ago isn't a purchase — it's a tax. If you can wait 6–12 months, the worst of the spike may have passed.2. If building new, seriously consider DDR4 platforms. Gaming performance between DDR4 and DDR5 is nearly identical at 1440p and 4K. An AM4 board with a Ryzen 5000 CPU and DDR4-3600 will game just as well as a DDR5 system for hundreds less. We break down the full performance comparison in our DDR3 vs DDR4 vs DDR5 for Gaming guide.3. If you already have 16GB+, optimize what you have. Before spending $300+ on more RAM, make sure Windows isn't wasting what you've already got. Background apps, bloatware, Copilot, Xbox Game Bar, and telemetry services can consume 2–4GB of RAM before you even open a game. Reclaiming that memory is free. Start with our Copilot & Bloatware removal guide and our Background Apps guide.4. Check used and refurbished markets. DDR4 pulled from decommissioned office PCs works identically to retail RAM. eBay, local electronics recyclers, and refurbished retailers are all viable sources. Just verify the specs match your motherboard's supported speeds.5. Don't upgrade from DDR4 to DDR5 for gaming. A DDR4-to-DDR5 switch requires a new motherboard and usually a new CPU. The gaming performance difference is 1–5% in most titles. At current prices, that's potentially $800+ for essentially no visible improvement in your games.6. Set price alerts. If you need RAM but can wait, use PCPartPicker, CamelCamelCamel, or similar tools to set alerts for your target kit. Prices fluctuate daily and you may catch a brief dip during restocks.7. Squeeze every megabyte out of what you already have. This is the part most people skip, and it's the part that's free. Kill the Xbox Game Bar (200–400MB of wasted RAM), clean up your startup programs, and strip out the telemetry and background junk that's consuming memory before your game even launches.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 RAM crisis is real. It's driven by AI demand that isn't slowing down. It's backed by industry executives publicly stating it will get worse before it gets better. And prices probably won't return to mid-2025 levels for years — if ever.The smart move for gamers right now isn't to chase more RAM at inflated prices. It's to make the most of what you already have. Strip out the bloatware, kill the background processes, optimize your Windows defaults — and squeeze every megabyte out of the memory that's already in your machine.That's what our optimization guides are built for. And unlike a RAM upgrade right now, they're free.

Sources & Further Reading

• Bloomberg / Fortune — Rampant AI demand for memory is fueling a growing chip crisis (Feb 15, 2026)• Rest of World — AI is dominating the world's memory chips: An explainer• Tom's Hardware — RAM Price Tracking 2026: Daily lowest prices on DDR5 and DDR4• Tom's Guide — Analyst predicts bleak future for RAM crisis, shortage may extend past 2028• PCMag — The RAM Crisis Is Getting Worse: How to buy or build a PC without going broke• WCCFTech — Micron is abandoning consumer SSDs & RAM; Crucial products killed off for AI• XDA Developers — DDR4 systems quietly became the only sane choice in 2026• PC Gamer — Redditor scores $500 worth of DDR4 at local dump• Introl — The AI Memory Supercycle: How HBM became AI's most critical bottleneck• OriginalPricing.com — RAM prices exploded 400% in 2026: Why memory costs are skyrocketing

• DDR3 vs DDR4 vs DDR5 for Gaming — Full comparison of all three generations with benchmarks and recommendations• Copilot & Bloatware — Remove background junk consuming your RAM• Background Apps — Free up 100–300MB of RAM by disabling apps you don't use• Startup Optimization — Stop programs from eating memory on boot• Game Bar & DVR — Reclaim 200–400MB of idle RAMThe crisis will pass eventually. In the meantime, optimize what you've got.