Why Your Next Gaming PC Just Got More Expensive
If you have been thinking about upgrading your gaming PC with more RAM or a faster SSD, you might be in for a shock. Memory prices are climbing fast and it is not just one brand or one store. This is a full blown industry wide spike that is already affecting gaming rigs, prebuilt systems and even laptops.
G.Skill, one of the most popular RAM brands among PC gamers, has released a public statement explaining why its DRAM prices have jumped so sharply. The company says the core issue is simple but brutal: severe global supply constraints and shortages in DRAM.
So what is driving this shortage? According to G.Skill and other industry players, the main force behind it is unprecedented demand from the AI industry. Massive AI data centers are sucking up memory and storage at a scale normal consumer PC demand cannot compete with. When big AI players are willing to pay high prices to secure supply, everyone else feels the squeeze.
G.Skill explains that its own procurement and sourcing costs have substantially increased as a result. In other words, the chips that go into your RAM sticks are now far more expensive for G.Skill to buy. Those higher costs are being passed down to the rest of us who just want to boost our FPS or cut load times in games.
Worse still, G.Skill stresses that prices are subject to change without notice based on market conditions. That means the volatility is not over and what looks expensive today could be even pricier in a few months.
How AI Is Driving a Memory and Storage Crisis
G.Skill is far from alone. Framework, the modular laptop maker that is popular with enthusiasts, has already raised the price of its RAM options by around 50 percent. Even after that increase, Framework says its RAM pricing is still below the wider market rate which shows just how intense the price pressure has become.
On the manufacturing side, major memory giants Samsung and SK Hynix are taking a cautious approach. Rather than rushing to flood the market with new DRAM supply, they are actively trying to minimize the risk of oversupply. That may protect them from another brutal price crash like in past memory cycles, but it also means the current shortage could last longer. Some analysts warn that this supply tension could drag on into 2028.
The problem is not limited to system RAM. AI data centers are also devouring storage. Kingston has reported a 246 percent increase in NAND wafer prices with the biggest jump hitting within just the last 60 days. NAND is the core component used in SSDs, so soaring wafer prices are almost guaranteed to translate into more expensive SSDs for gamers and creators.
Goldman Sachs research backs this up and points towards both DRAM and SSD pricing continuing to spike over the coming year, simply because demand is outpacing supply. When huge AI deployments and cloud infrastructure are competing for the same components as consumer PCs, the consumer side is usually the one that loses out.
Major PC brands are already preparing their customers for the fallout. Lenovo and HP have warned buyers to expect PC price hikes starting in January and Dell has already pushed some increases through. Gaming system vendors and laptop makers cannot absorb these higher component costs forever, so full system prices are being adjusted upward.
Acer and Asus have confirmed they will pass some of these surging memory costs on to buyers as well. Their leadership has described this as an emerging industry wide consensus which is a polite way of saying that more expensive RAM and SSDs are going to show up in the final price tags of gaming laptops and desktops.
What PC Gamers Should Do About Rising RAM and SSD Prices
For gamers and PC enthusiasts, 2026 is shaping up to be an expensive year to build or upgrade a rig. High performance DDR5 memory kits like G.Skill Trident series modules are already starting to feel like gold dust, priced higher and sometimes harder to find in the capacities and speeds we really want for high end gaming builds.
So how should you react to all this without wasting money or getting caught out by even higher prices later?
- Consider upgrading sooner rather than later: Kingston’s datacenter SSD business manager has bluntly suggested that anyone looking to upgrade should do it now and not wait, because prices are likely to keep going up. If you have been seriously planning a RAM or SSD upgrade in the near future, it may be worth pulling the trigger while prices, however painful, are still lower than they might be in six to twelve months.
- Avoid panic buying: That said, buying hardware you do not really need just because prices might rise more is not a smart move. Focus on genuine bottlenecks. If your system already has enough RAM for your games and your SSD is not full or painfully slow, you might be better off waiting and watching the market.
- Optimize what you already have: Before spending anything, make sure your current rig is properly tuned. Close background apps that eat RAM, enable XMP or EXPO profiles in BIOS so your existing DDR4 or DDR5 runs at full rated speed, and tidy up your SSD so it has free space to work efficiently.
- Hunt for deals and track prices: In a volatile market, discounts and short lived promos still pop up. Keep an eye on trusted deal pages that track the best SSD offers and graphics card pricing trends. Even if the overall direction is upward, you can still dodge the worst spikes with smart timing.
- Plan builds more carefully: If you are speccing out a new gaming PC, budget a bit more for RAM and storage than you would have a year or two ago. Also consider whether you really need extreme capacity or ultra high speed kits. Often a well balanced 32 GB DDR5 kit at a sensible speed and a fast 1 TB or 2 TB SSD will serve you just as well as more exotic parts for gaming.
The memory and storage crunch is yet another reminder that the PC hardware world is tightly tied to much larger trends in tech. Right now, the AI boom is the main driver reshaping pricing. For gamers that means being a bit more strategic about when and how we upgrade. With some planning and a close eye on deals, you can still improve your rig without getting completely wrecked by the memory market.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/memory/add-it-to-the-pile-g-skill-issues-statement-on-surging-dram-memory-prices-and-totally-blames-ai/
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