The topic Apple just proved RAM prices won’t drop for years, and PC gamers should upgrade… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
If you’re someone who keeps up with PC hardware, you probably already know that RAM prices have been going up since late last year. This isn’t anything new, though. PC gamers have seen RAM prices fluctuate for years, often dropping just as quickly as they rise once supply catches up with demand. And that cycle is precisely why many people just assume it’s better to wait a few months, hoping prices will be more reasonable. This time, however, I’m not so sure that strategy will pay off. That’s why I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to AM5 anyway.
Apple’s latest price hikes make my decision look a lot smarter in hindsight. The company raised prices across most of its lineup, citing memory costs. The base MacBook Air went from $1,099 to $1,299, while the MacBook Pro now starts at $1,999 instead of $1,699. Even the base iPad Air now costs $749 instead of $599. As much as this news sounds like an Apple problem, PC gamers should be just as concerned. If one of the most valuable companies in the world can’t absorb rising memory costs, be prepared to wait years for prices to normalize.
If Micron’s exit from the consumer market earlier this year wasn’t already enough of a warning sign, Apple raising prices should remove any remaining doubt. Remember that we’re talking about a company that orders components in enormous volumes and negotiates directly with suppliers like Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. In fact, Apple is big enough to use existing inventory to delay the impact of short-term price increases. That buffer is probably why Apple has been able to absorb costs longer than others.
That said, even a multi-trillion-dollar company like Apple can’t absorb rising memory costs forever, especially when protecting margins is part of the business. Eventually, those added costs have to be passed on to consumers, and that’s what we’re seeing here. RAM prices have been creeping up since September last year, and it’s only now that Apple has decided it can no longer shield consumers from those increases. That’s enough to tell me this isn’t the kind of RAM shortage that’ll disappear in a year, let alone a few months.
Apple doesn’t seem to be fully maintaining its margins despite its price hike, and that tells you just how expensive memory has become. If you look for DDR5 kits online, you’ll see that prices have quadrupled since last year, and Apple is doubling what it used to charge for unified memory upgrades. The problem here is that even Apple’s negotiating power can only go so far when RAM manufacturers like Micron and Samsung have far more lucrative buyers in AI data centers.
That matters because the AI data center buildout isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, and every new GPU cluster they deploy needs enormous amounts of HBM and DRAM. RAM manufacturers can’t ramp up production easily when new fabs take years to build. With Micron now expecting the memory crisis to last until at least 2028, PC gamers may be waiting years before RAM prices feel reasonable again.
We’ve seen memory prices spike and crash multiple times over the last decade. Remember when smartphones were driving up NAND and DRAM prices back in 2017, or when crypto mining pushed GPUs into absurd territory for the first time? Neither of those lasted longer than a couple of years at best. Even DDR5 kits were expensive at launch, but became relatively affordable by 2024. That history makes it easy to believe that this shortage will eventually follow the same pattern.
But I don’t think this cycle plays out the same way. The AI infrastructure buildout is a long-term investment, even if many still see it as a speculative bubble. Big Tech has already committed over a trillion dollars to AI infrastructure, and nobody is making those kinds of investments for demand that’d disappear in a year or two. With over 1,500 data centers planned in the US alone, on top of the existing ones, the demand for HBM and DRAM isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Of course, prices will eventually come down, but don’t expect to snag a 32GB DDR5 kit for $100 like you could a year ago.
If you think RAM prices will be lower in a year, so you can build your next gaming rig, you might be betting on the wrong side. When I decided to upgrade to AM5 earlier this year, I was hesitant to spend over $400 on a 32GB DDR5 kit that had cost just $100 a year ago. In fact, I now regret not upgrading sooner. But now that Apple has decided to pass those costs on to consumers, I don’t think we’ll see those prices again until there’s so much excess supply that manufacturers don’t know what to do with it. If I were you, I’d rather upgrade now unless you don’t mind waiting years for prices to normalize. Remember, prices could still double again before they come down, and you’d regret not upgrading this year.
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