Technology

I quite like the idea of people just not engaging with this.

Can't play the latest AAA because I can't afford the equipment for it? No worries, there's literally thousands of other games out there.

More realistically though, people will end up subbing to a streaming service, which is almost certainly what the companies would prefer.

HDDs have doubled in price recently too. Not a good time to try building a computer.

As you can imagine, this is enormous pricing pressure for enthusiasts trying to build gaming PCs or upgrade their rigs in 2026.

Waiting until 2028 for anything involving RAM would be a good idea, if possible. You're likely to get more for your money.

If you've got money burning a hole in your pocket and are determined to spend on gaming computer hardware in 2026/2027, it might be a good idea to consider things like game controllers, displays, or something like that, since those don't have prices driven by memory price.

Upgraded my homelab with 256GB right before the prices went nuts. Lucky me.

But before I bought the best GPU at the time for absolute peak-price, adamant it would rise further and never going back.

So...universe equalized for me. For now.

RAM has always gone through huge price cycles as long as I can remember. You buy when it is good value then don't when it goes up. The industry always responded to high prices by building too much capacity so after a few years the prices all crashed.

This time it feels different. We don't have the huge diversity of producers we once did. The 3 big remaining players clearly operate as something like a cartel. I doubt they are responding to current shortages with huge new fab investments.

Lots of PC part manufacturers and retailers aren't going to make it through to the over side of this. I think it could lead to massive long term changes for the DIY market.

Gaming is just going to become a hobby for the rich at this rate. There is no way we can keep up with this.

Don't worry, China is about to flood the market. Don't buy RAM yet, wait for the prices to normalize first.

Devs just need to optimize their software. My i5 750 still works just fine with a 1060 and 16gb ram. Their's thousand of great games to play, fuck the aaa.

Aug 2024, I purchased 32gb of RAM for $109. That same kit today would cost me $509. Sept 2025 I got a 250gb nvme for $33 that is now around $85. The inflation is real.

Basically we will be buying computer parts in specific decades, like this decade is bad for anything memory, last was bad for anything GPU. Next will be bad for, I don't know, screens or mobos. And so on.

I just had to buy a m.2 drive. It cost more than double the same item I bought in 2022. It also cost more than the entire computer it's being installed into! FML.

Purchased May 6, 2024

Going back to the 90s when a few megabytes was hundreds of dollars.

I guess I'll just stay on am4 until the bubble pops then. DDR4 has also gone up, but at least the prices are reasonable

I just don't think people are buying RAM/other PC parts period. new or used.

I've have a listing selling a couple year old sticks of 16gb (32gb total) of DDR4 ram for $120 for like 4 weeks now and not a peep from anyone. I've seen other listings for ram at similar price points that have also been up for weeks.

So i'm not sure if there's an actual shortage or people just simply aren't buying.

I bought 96 gigs of DDR3 for my server in December 2022. It cost $118.76; less than $1.24 per gig.