- Counterpoint Research has published a new report on the price of RAM
- Predicts PC RAM will almost double in price this quarter
- On top of that, one PC maker has sounded the alarm about rising component prices, and it’s one of many
If you were crossing your fingers for more optimistic news on the AMR crisis (because we’ve had glimpses of that lately), then those hopes will be dashed, I’m afraid, by the latest developments that are clearly negative.
The main point of interest here is that we have a new report from Counterpoint Research that notes that memory prices have almost doubled in the first quarter of 2026 so far, compared to the same period in the last quarter of 2025.
The company tells us: “Memory prices have increased between 80% and 90% quarter-over-quarter in the first quarter of 2026 so far, according to the February edition of Counterpoint’s Memory Price Tracker, marking a record and unprecedented increase.”
Of course, that’s not comforting language, and while we’re told that the main force behind these huge price increases is the increase in the cost of server RAM, PC memory modules have seen a very similar increase.
Counterpoint highlights DDR4 RAM for laptops (SoDIMM), of which an 8GB unit saw a 35% price increase in Q4 2025 (quarterly), with a currently estimated jump to a 91% increase for Q1 2026 compared to the previous quarter.
Server RAM will end up being 98% more this quarter, and even NAND modules for storage will see a significant jump in the first quarter of 2026: in fact, a 100% quarter-on-quarter increase is expected. Disgusting.
Analysis: Memory misery across the industry
Basically, the counterpoint tells us that the price of all types of memory will increase considerably this quarter, from PC RAM to server RAM, to HBM (high bandwidth memory, high-end modules for AI use) and, in fact, even NAND for SSDs. As the analyst firm summarizes: “The market is experiencing an upward trend at full speed in all segments.”
Meanwhile, we’re hearing the same story from other analyst teams, such as TrendForce, which predicts the price of DRAM will rise by 50%, or possibly a little more, in the first quarter of 2026.
Closer to the ground in this component crisis, PC makers are also warning of tough times ahead for RAM costs, and the latest in that regard is PowerGPU, a custom gaming PC maker in the US.
Tom’s Hardware noted that PowerGPU posted on Presumably those “other parts” are the RAM, of course, and possibly also the GPUs, which are facing their own problems due to a shortage of video memory.
It all sounds pretty ominous, and PowerGPU’s statement adds to the pile of such warnings from various PC manufacturers that we received late last year and during these early stages of 2026.
While there have been some more positive glimmers recently around the RAM crisis, as noted at the beginning, as a snapshot of DDR5 price stabilization, the overall sentiment is very negative, with forecasts of not just more price increases, but huge ones. Whether it’s 50% or 100% spikes this quarter (take your pick from the pessimistic predictions), it looks like we’re in for a lot more pain, whether it’s buying standalone RAM or PCs (or even graphics cards).
PC makers will likely try to find ways to at least partially mitigate this RAM price misery, which could mean relying on lower memory configurations with laptops (backclocking to use more 8GB loads) or even creative tricks like Maingear’s BYOR or ‘Bring Your Own RAM’ concept.
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