Apple was overpricing RAM before it was cool.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Yeah, I bought 32GB of RAM about three months ago for my new computer build and last I checked it had doubled in price. Thinking about selling it for a profit. Can a computer run without RAM?
32GB of DDR4 3200Mhz cost me $115 in October, now the listing is out of stock and says $392. 240% increase.
We're in the late stages of the AI bubble.
God I hope so
Ram is the new Bitcoin.
I was about to say "atleast this is a physical thing not some completely made-up digital thing with no real value"
Then I realized these prices are partially based on speculation... So I guess it's still just a made up digital thingy"
Fuck man turns out all money is fake this is bullshit I want a redo
Something something buy gold and silver.
Oh fuck that's just made up value tooo....
When the yet-to-be data centers never get built because AI slop bubble pops, we will be able to build houses out of RAM sticks for the poor
Theyll just manufacture another reason to keep prices high
Ahhh the de beers technique
I can't believe how lucky I was to upgrade my desktop before the surge. This is an outrage!
I did my desktop but skipped my server.
Even decade+ old used surplus server DDR4 didn't escape the apocalypse.
Same .. I hadn't upgraded since 2012, and had some extra cash, so rebuilt in August. Feeling pretty lucky to have done it then, and really glad I went ahead and put 64GB RAM in it.
You waited a long time holy shit. I regret not getting 64 gb in 2024 when I did my current build.
I did as well which is a polite way of saying I blew all my RAM savings on the how overpriced GPUs were at the time
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Im on Linux and it requires just as much memory as it did in 2018. No problem here.
I upgraded mine from 16GB to 32GB two years ago beacuse RAM was cheap. I didn't really need it, and have probably never hit 16GB usage anyway.
Meanwhile my work Windows laptop uses 16GB at idle after first login.
Windows has always been wasteful computing, and everyone just pays for it.
Requiring less RAM is good, but conceptually, it's Linux that is "wasting" the RAM by never using it. It's there, and it's reusable, fill it up! Now, does Windows make good use of it? No idea. Wouldn't bet on it, but I could be surprised.
What for? My system only has I/O if i open a file and that doesn't need to go faster, because NVME.
And no, it doesn't work like that; a desktop pc is not a smarthone. Used RAM gets reserved and you get a OOM freeze or snipe if it's full.
Linux uses "free" ram for caching, so it's not really wasted.
Empty ram is inherently wasteful.
Linux doesn't waste RAM. All unused RAM becomes a disk read cache, but remains available on demand.
Storing data in ram isn’t wasteful though, I have a lot of criticisms of windows but the memory management isn’t one of them. I’d rather have as much predictive content be staged in ram as possible as long as it’s readily dumped out of I go to do something else, which is my experience. Like I don’t earn interest for having unused RAM on my computers (for reference I have an endeavorOS, rhel, fedora, and windows computers under my desk connected to a dual monitor kvm right now; it isn’t like I don’t regularly use/prefer Linux; I mostly access my windows machine via rustesk for work related stuff I don’t feel like having to dick with on Linux like the purchase order system and Timecard system), I just don’t get this critique.
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Damn never thought the gaming PC I built two years ago would actually be APPRECIATING in value over time.
Just about all electronics older than a year or so have. Even a Switch, which came out 9 years ago, costs more to buy now than it did then!
Wait what? I still remembered it as a recent console...
I feel like my brain is stuck. When I think of most powerful GPU, my brain's muscle memory replies with 1080 Ti.
It's truly mental. I don't think I could afford to build my PC at the same spec today with RAM and SSD prices being what they are.
I have 128 GB of ddr5 memory in my machine. I paid 1400 for my 7900xtx which I thought was crazy and now half my ram is worth that.
Never thought I would see the day where the graphics card was not the most expensive component.
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2026 is going to suck for hardware, but 2027 might be better if this nonsense blows over. For one thing, AMD’s RDNA 5 was announced for 2027, which is supposed to be more comparable to Nvidia for compute workloads, including real RTX cores. AMDs recent SoCs have been pretty impressive, so I’m looking forward to AMD SoCs that are competitive with Nvidia discrete GPUs beyond just rasterization, except without artificially constrained VRAM and lower power requirements.
Who produces the chips that make AMD products? They are the bottleneck. If those fabs are already overloaded, a new product won't help in any way.
This article sucks... I think they felt the need to excuse AI lest they upset corporate masters
While it’s easy to point the finger at AI’s unquenchable memory thirst for the current crisis, it’s not the only reason.
Followed by:
DRAM production hasn’t kept up with demand. Older memory types are being phased out, newer ones are steered toward higher margin customers, and consumer RAM is left exposed whenever supply tightens.
Production has not kept up with demand... demand being super charged by AI purchases
...newer ones are steered towards higher margin customers... again AI
consumer RAM is left exposed whenever supply tightens... because of AI
You see, it's easy to blame AI data centers buying all the RAM - but that's only half the story! ~the~ ~other~ ~half~ ~of~ ~the~ ~story~ ~is~ ~manufacturers~ ~selling~ ~to~ ~these~ ~data~ ~centers~
The LLM writing this feels almost sentient lol.
Apple over here not raising their RAM prices because they’ve always been massively and unjustifiably inflated. Now, they’re no longer unjustifiably inflated.
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Apple: see!? We do not inflate our ram prices!!!
Me to my 10 year old gaming pc: "I guess it'll be another couple of years, buddy."
Give it a lil pat pat for good measure
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