(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton/PCMag)
Bad news for Raspberry Pi fans. The ongoing memory shortage means prices for various Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 boards will increase by up to $25.
Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton blames the hikes on AI data center demand, which is affecting production of LPDDR4, the SDRAM used in the company’s low-cost custom computers.
Raspberry Pi will raise prices on seven models. On the low end, the 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 will increase by $5 from $55 to $60, while the 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 will jump by $25 from $120 to $145. For those who need to keep costs down, the vendor is releasing a 1GB Raspberry Pi 5 board for $45. It joins the 1GB Raspberry Pi 4, which remains at $35.
(Credit: Raspberry Pi)In October, Raspberry Pi also rolled out another set of price hikes ranging from $5 to $10, indicating its stockpile of memory had dwindled. Although most of the price increases targeted the industrial-focused "Compute Model" line, the company had to raise the cost for one of its keyboard mini PCs, the Raspberry Pi 500, by $10 to $100.
On Monday, Upton also noted that he expects an "increasingly constrained market in 2026" for memory. However, "the prices of lower-density Raspberry Pi 4 variants, of Raspberry Pi 3+ and earlier models, and of Raspberry Pi Zero products remain unchanged," he added.
“The current pressure on memory prices, driven by competition from the AI infrastructure rollout, is painful but ultimately temporary,” Upton further said. “We remain committed to driving down the cost of computing and look forward to unwinding these price increases once it abates.”
Still, consumers should brace for more price hikes, as the cost of DDR RAM has skyrocketed by over 200% in recent weeks. PC desktop vendor CyberPowerPC plans on implementing price changes starting on Dec. 7. Meanwhile, HP has warned that it plans to lower memory configurations and increase prices next spring to offset the shortage.