Prices for personal computer RAM modules have surged, with kits of the newer standard costing several times more — journalists compared retail prices from past years with the market situation in autumn 2026, infohub.kz reports.
According to Engadget, a 32-gigabyte DDR4 memory kit cost buyers $94.99 in 2020, but by October 2026 the most affordable equivalent offer on price aggregators had risen to $198.
Memory of the more modern DDR5 generation, which appeared on the market en masse in late 2021, has risen even more sharply. In autumn 2025, a 32-gigabyte DDR5 kit could be bought for $100–200. A year later, the minimum price for a set of the same capacity at 6000 megahertz had jumped to $454, while a 64-gigabyte kit now costs from $915.
The authors cite the explosive growth of artificial intelligence as the main reason for the price spike. Since late 2025, data center operators have been actively buying up server memory along with specialized high-bandwidth chips, creating a shortage on the consumer market. Against this backdrop, prices on the secondary components market have also risen, and building a PC has become more complicated due to higher storage prices.