It’s no secret that prices for PC main system memory—formally known as random-access memory, or RAM—have spiraled out of control. In the last couple of months, prices for modules of DDR5 RAM (the latest standard) have skyrocketed, doubling and then some. A 64GB kit of desktop memory has quickly become more expensive than a Sony PlayStation 5, and some larger kits now cost more than a high-end desktop GPU. The bonkers price rises are starting to bleed into older memory types, too, like DDR4 and DDR3.
These price hikes will affect every product that relies on memory or storage—but I want to focus on laptops right now. Laptops don’t use the same physical modules that desktops do, but the underlying memory chips are the same and susceptible to the same price pressures. As one of PCMag’s leading laptop experts, I can tell you: it’s about to get rocky for anyone who needs a new PC this year.
Why Is RAM So Expensive Right Now?
Let’s first understand why RAM prices have surged so much, and will continue to. The simple answer is overwhelming demand from the AI-compute giants.
Massive banks of memory are critical to peak AI performance, making memory chips essential to meeting the soaring need for AI power. The data centers that power ChatGPT and other AI tools are gobbling up a massive chunk of the available memory-manufacturing bandwidth. AI applications don’t necessarily demand the exact same kinds of memory that PCs do, but the relevant memory factories, or fabs—these days, largely concentrated among three big players, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix—have only so much capacity.
This year, AI-centric memory is projected to consume 70% of global memory hardware production, according to TrendForce, a Taiwan-based industry analysis and consulting company focused on the semiconductor industry. That leaves only so much capacity for consumer stuff.
(Credit: Google)
To meet that AI data-center hunger, major memory-chip makers are shifting some of their manufacturing capacity to stacked-design high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server-grade DDR5, further cutting the supply of chips destined for consumers and consumer-grade machines. How big a shift is this? For example, American memory giant Micron has exited the direct-to-consumer memory market entirely, shutting down its longtime Crucial sub-brand familiar to many upgraders and home PC builders. It will still provide memory to commercial PC makers, but the crunch affects them, too.
A starved supply, with no drop in demand, means prices have gone through the roof—and they’re expected to stay high for a year or more, as AI software giants such as OpenAI and AI-hardware titans such as Nvidia try to lock in supply pricing, contracting huge numbers of yet-to-be-made wafers and chips.
It’s Not Just the RAM: Graphics Cards, SSDs Are Under Pressure, Too
The trouble is that these rising prices won’t stay limited to just DDR5 RAM modules. (DDR memory is also referred to as DRAM.) We’re already seeing upticks in DDR4 and DDR3, older memory standards that may not deliver the speed needed for current AI tech but do just fine for more pedestrian uses.
Plus, this supply shortage is affecting other components that contain memory as part of the whole. The immediate ripple effect will hit graphics cards, which rely on dedicated memory for assisting with graphics rendering and local AI workflows. (And memory crunch aside, graphics cards themselves are also seeing huge increases in demand.) The prices of GDDR6 and GDDR7 video memory used by those cards are rising for the same reasons: The cost per gigabit has more than tripled in the last six months, and this price surge will translate directly into more expensive desktop and laptop graphics cards.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
As PC users feel the squeeze on memory, they’re likely to turn to fast solid-state drives (SSDs) and software solutions to offset constrained RAM. But the companies making DRAM overlap with those making the NAND chips used for the SSDs that laptops and desktops rely on. And if DRAM demand is pulling manufacturing capacity away from consumer DRAM chips, it will also pull capacity away from the chips that make up SSDs. The price of NAND wafers has already climbed in lockstep with memory, jumping as much as 60% month-over-month last November, according to supply-chain analysis firm Procurement Pro.
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Naturally, as the price of those components rises, so does the total cost of a new laptop. Major laptop brands like Dell, HP, and Lenovo have already publicly estimated price hikes of 15% to 30%, and smaller companies like Framework have taken steps not only to raise RAM prices but also to prioritize the sale of complete systems over standalone parts to deter scalpers from scarfing up parts just for resale.
Now, maybe you’re not seeing the signs of this quite yet, if you’re shopping for a laptop now. To some extent, current prices have been stabilized by existing inventory. Companies such as Apple have been able to stave off price increases for the moment because they still have a lot of chips on hand that were purchased at lower prices. But once those stockpiles dry up, the competition for what remains on the market will get heated. Honestly, 30% price increases sound conservative to me.
The takeaway? Prices aren’t just peaking, they’re going to be higher for a while. And with companies buying up manufacturing capacity in advance, it could be years before things stabilize.
Laptops Are Headed for Big Price Increases
These price increases will be across the board: Every laptop category, from Chromebooks to gaming laptops, will get more expensive as memory remains bottlenecked by price and availability. And it’s going to strike those categories in different ways.
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High-end laptops for gaming and media creation are already luxury items, but prices for 32GB and 64GB systems will soar further. High-memory configurations (in any category) are going to get a lot more expensive.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Meanwhile, ultraportable laptops (both business and consumer models) may shift entirely to soldered memory chips—aside from Lenovo’s ThinkPad T-series and Framework’s modular offerings, socketed DDR5 RAM was already hard to find in these kinds of laptops. I suspect that a protracted supply issue will snuff out most of those that are still around. (That said, mobile workstations will likely keep using memory modules; their prices are traditionally high to start with, and they’re considered more investment-grade machines.) I’d expect 16GB to emerge as the new ceiling for moderately priced laptops, and 32GB models will become even more premium.
Budget systems and Chromebooks may not see prices rise as high, since most already offer just 4GB or 8GB of memory to begin with. But when prices are low to start, a $500 laptop quickly becomes a $650 laptop when you factor in a 30% price increase. I’d expect the selection of machines in the under-$500 category to shrink considerably over the next year, and 4GB to re-emerge as a more common memory amount in the very cheapest machines. Google’s Chromebook Plus guidelines, for one thing, mandate at least 8GB of memory, so those models may no longer start at the $399 base price we’ve seen from these machines in recent years.
How to Buy a Laptop in the RAM-pocalypse
This new pricing paradigm means a few things for laptop shoppers. The first bit of advice is similar to what I suggested back when tech tariffs were the price threat of the moment: If you know you need to buy something relatively soon, buy it now, before prices climb higher. Laptop prices will become more volatile over the next year or two, and they’ll go only one way: up.
Second, plan for today and tomorrow, whether that means paying more up front for extra RAM you might need, or looking for a system that lets you upgrade the RAM. With so many systems today using soldered-down memory, you’re usually stuck with whatever you select at purchase. So either bite the bullet and pay for the RAM you need at checkout, or buy a system that will let you upgrade once this demand wave has passed.
Finally, if you really need to save this year, don’t look forward, look back. A 2025 or even 2024 laptop model might be a year behind in processor or graphics technology, but you might be able to save a bunch by buying, say, an Apple M4 MacBook or an early Intel Core Ultra model that was priced before the RAM crunch. However, move fast, because speculators may start snapping up older or used systems for the chips, or to flip the whole system later for a profit.
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About Our Expert
Brian Westover
Principal Writer, Hardware
Experience
From the laptops on your desk to satellites in space and AI that seems to be everywhere, I cover many topics at PCMag. I’ve covered PCs and technology products for over 15 years at PCMag and other publications, among them Tom’s Guide, Laptop Mag, and TWICE. As a hardware reviewer, I’ve handled dozens of MacBooks, 2-in-1 laptops, Chromebooks, and the latest AI PCs. As the resident Starlink expert, I’ve done years of hands-on testing with the satellite service. I also explore the most valuable ways to use the latest AI tools and features in our Try AI column.
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