(Credit: PCMag)
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Memory prices are skyrocketing, and average consumer kits are becoming increasingly difficult to find amid a surge in demand from the rapid growth of the AI industry.
DRAM pricing was up 171.8% year over year in Q3, Reuters reports, citing TrendForce data. That's good news for memory chip makers like Samsung, but demand has prompted some panic buying among the major players, which is bad news for the average consumer.
PCPartPicker has charted this increase in real time over the past few months. A Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5-6000 kit, for example, was around $90 in July, rose to $150 in September, and is now at $200. There are many other similar examples.
Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. Retailers and memory packagers are now feeling the crunch, but it has been months in the making. In September, Micron stopped providing quotes for DDR4, DDR5, LPDDR4, and LPDDR5 after notifying partners of a 20% to 30% price increase.
"Those prices are likely to climb even higher in key sectors like industrial-grade storage and automotive electronics, with some expected to see increases as high as 70%," according to Sourceability.
The CEO of Phison Electronics also speculated last month that projected shortages for NAND Flash storage could last 10 years. That's perhaps hyperbolic, and it's certainly the most pessimistic of any outlook, but it highlights the scale of the potential problem.
A significant portion of that "problem" hinges on the rate at which the AI industry continues to expand. Is it a new era or a bubble?