- Samsung has reportedly doubled the cost of DDR5 RAM
- This is the DDR5 contract price charged to RAM manufacturers
- However, as always, price increases in the supply chain will be passed on to consumers (if this rumor is correct, of course).
There is even more worrying news about the cost of RAM, as Samsung is rumored to be seriously increasing the price of DDR5 memory (and the price of DDR4 continues to increase as well).
Notebookcheck.net discovered that leaker Jukan on
Taiwanese media: DRAM price rise shows no signs of stopping According to Taiwanese media reports, Samsung has abruptly raised the DDR5 contract price to $19.50, bringing it closer to $20. This figure represents an increase of more than 100% compared to the previous…December 15, 2025
Obviously, let’s take this with some skepticism, but the claim is that Samsung is now charging a contract price of $19.50 (per 2GB memory chip) for 16GB of DDR5, which is more than double what it was previously when this increase occurred in late November, we’re told.
Let that sink in: prices have more than doubled (they were $9), and while this is due to cost in the supply chain, as always, this increase will be passed on to consumers, who will ultimately foot the bill.
Technowvoice describes the RAM industry as being in a state of “structural disruption” and that, regarding this latest price increase, Samsung simply told its downstream customers that there is simply “no stock.” (although please note that the article is translated from Chinese, so some nuances as to the original meaning may be lost).
The report further notes that the latest generation DDR4 RAM has quadrupled in price following the withdrawal of Samsung and most other major players in the market, and the contract price for this slower memory has also increased to $18 at the end of last month.
Analysis: There are no signs that price increases are expected to stagnate
Of course, it is clear that a serious disturbance is occurring, as we have seen in the ridiculously steep (in fact, almost vertical) curve. increase in the price of RAM in retail since the end of September. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a rapid increase in prices for any type of PC components (except perhaps the highest-end GPUs when stocks were scarce during the cryptocurrency craze).
This Technowvoice report further notes that the hope was that by December 2025, RAM price increases could begin to calm down, and that we could have seen the worst of the increases throughout October and November. However, that is not happening; instead, we are experiencing even steeper price increases.
The report also notes that memory manufacturers have nowhere to turn, as whether they make DDR4 or DDR5 RAM, prices have skyrocketed.
In short, system RAM will most likely become even more expensive (as if it weren’t already expensive enough) and storage is suffering a similar fate, to boot.
If you’re thinking about purchasing DDR4 or DDR5 RAM, the best advice for now is to wait and hope that some of the more pessimistic forecasts, which claim that these price increases could last until 2027, or perhaps even longer, turn out to be wrong. But system memory is already priced at incredible levels, so buying seems like a foolish decision unless you can somehow find a reasonable deal. (Storage and SSDs are a different case, especially for budget drives, and you may want to move forward now, or quickly, on that front.)
The problem is that the cost of RAM not only affects those building a new PC or upgrading their existing computer’s memory, but it will also have a major impact on the price of pre-built devices, and laptops in particular.
With this new bad news from Samsung, it looks like the situation could be worse than we thought, and the price of RAM and laptops could inflate considerably as next year arrives. I definitely wouldn’t bet against that happening.
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