- Micron has taken its Crucial consumer RAM offline
- Instead, it focuses on manufacturing RAM modules for data centers.
- In addition to this, there are more stories of trouble in the memory world, and also rumors about price increases for AMD Ryzen CPUs.
Predictions about the price of PC components are getting bleaker by the day, and now there’s a lot of fresh pessimism sitting atop the mountain of doom: The bleakest news is that Micron is shutting down its consumer RAM division.
That means the end of the road for Micron’s Crucial RAM, which has long been popular in the PC world.
As noted by PC Gamer, Micron issued a statement to say: “AI-driven growth in the data center has led to an increase in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit Crucial’s consumer business to improve supply and support for our largest strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”
In other words, the company is focused on making much more cost-effective memory modules for data centers.
Micron notes that it will “continue shipments of Crucial consumer products through the consumer channel through the end of the second fiscal quarter (February 2026).”
After February of next year, anything left on shelves or in warehouses can still be sold, but after that, there will be no more Crucial RAM.
Want more RAM nuggets? I know not, not really, but here goes: what’s up with Samsung refusing to sell RAM? It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true, and as PC World reports, it’s about Samsung Semiconductor Global (which makes Samsung’s memory chips) not selling to Samsung Electronics, which wants RAM for its Galaxy smartphones (and also tablets, laptops, etc.).
I say “don’t sell,” but the nuance here is that Samsung Electronics wanted a contract to lock in supply and pricing for a full year, and that longer-term deal was rejected, with Samsung Semiconductor insisting on renegotiating on a quarterly basis (possibly including some sizable price jumps throughout the year).
Then there’s TeamGroup, a large memory manufacturer that offers many types of PC RAM, which, as Tom’s Hardware highlighted, said the price of contract DRAM has nearly doubled recently, and that supply will worsen in 2026. According to TeamGroup, things may not get back to normal for memory until 2027 or even 2028.
Changing gears now, there is also a rumor that CPU prices are increasing, at least on AMD’s side.
OC3D reports that its industry sources claim that AMD Ryzen processors increased in early December and that this applies to all CPUs, from the Ryzen 9000 series onwards.
Now, we haven’t seen any price increases for Ryzen processors this week, beyond the disappearance of Black Friday sale prices, that is, which complicates the issue a bit here, but as OC3D makes clear, this is the cost along the supply chain (at distributors).
Therefore, the effect will not be felt immediately for consumers, but is in the works for products on retailers’ shelves. (Although this report must be taken with a lot of seasoning, naturally – and all the points discussed here, which for now remain rumors).
Analysis: Crucial considerations if considering a new PC or component upgrade
If the rumors are correct, as 2026 begins, we could see Ryzen CPU price increases in addition to AMD Radeon GPU price increases, and there are separate rumors about Nvidia graphics cards as well. GPUs are affected by the higher cost of memory, of course, since they use video RAM, so that makes a lot of sense.
Why CPU prices might rise is another question, and one that OC3D doesn’t attempt to address (which makes the report seem a bit vague).
Still, even if Ryzen CPUs aren’t saddled with those rumored increases, GPUs and memory certainly are. Memory also means storage (SSD), but we see the current effects of memory supply issues most clearly when it comes to RAM units, which have skyrocketed in price. We’ve recently witnessed the cost of many PC RAM kits double, or even triple, and even Black Friday has provided little to no relief.
What is my current buying advice considering all this? It sounds like you should pull the trigger on a GPU now, or in a holiday sale, which may be your last chance to get a decent price (relative to MSRP). It’s a similar case for SSDs, which have already seen some substantial price increases, but I have a feeling things could get worse. significantly worse for those drives, and there will almost certainly be more significant price increases in 2026 for storage.
With RAM, the horse has already risen in terms of the huge price increases that have been the story of the past few months. However, with much of the worst recent news revolving around RAM (and with the departure of the Crucial brand raising questions about how other memory makers might treat their consumer offerings), it may not be a solution. awful It’s a good idea to buy system RAM now, at least not compared to mid-2026, say, as long as you can still find something that doesn’t seem horribly inflated (some of the prices are really ridiculous now, and you should never pay exorbitant amounts, of course).
But what about complete systems? If you’re already firmly set on building a new desktop PC, you may want to purchase the components very soon, in addition to RAM, as noted; It might be a good idea to consider recycling the system memory on your current PC, if possible, for the time being until pricing improves. However, that may not be until 2027 or even 2028, as noted above.
However, right now, if you want a new PC, building it isn’t really the way to go – your best option is to buy a pre-built desktop. This is because there are still stocks of pre-built PCs at relatively affordable prices (built using components purchased in bulk before rising RAM prices took effect) and this is really the best way forward for many.
Still, there are many points in favor of buying rather than building, in terms of overall warranty coverage and customer support, as well as eliminating the risks of things going wrong (frying key components while the build is being assembled, for example).
In short, if you’re looking for a new desktop PC, you should either get it now (and think carefully about a pre-built one) or be prepared to spend the next year with your current computer and wait until 2027 for an upgrade (which is exactly what we’re hearing from PC makers themselves). And for GPU and storage upgrades, again, the best time is likely now or in the next month.
I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more tales of woe in the PC component space before 2025 rolls around. As the AI market continues to boom, consumers will continue to get a raw deal, and I don’t see anything but a further AI “boom” in the near to medium future.
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