Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney says the RAM price hike crisis is here to stay
As PC component prices continue to surge worldwide, SSDs and RAM are two segments that have risen astronomically and are expected to continue doing so in the foreseeable future, making PC gaming a much less affordable avenue than it has historically been. Reports indicate that contract prices for DRAM have increased by 171%, outpacing even the recent meteoric rise in gold prices. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney weighed in with a tweet warning that RAM prices will be an issue for gaming, stating:
Factories are diverting leading edge DRAM capacity to meet AI needs where data centers are bidding far higher than consumer device makers.
Even though server-grade RDIMM memory and HBM are required for AI servers, manufacturers are shifting production to meet the surge in demand for those servers, thereby reducing DDR5 production. Sweeney’s comment was in response to another tweet comparing RAM prices in October and current price trends, with the user noting: ”I bought 64gb of ram 4 weeks ago for $240,” it stated. “Same kit right now is $498,” he added, linking an image showing the total price for the kit at $260 on the 13th of October, and the same kit now at $498.
OpenAI’s “Stargate” project has recently signed agreements with Samsung and SK hynix for up to 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. Just that deal alone brings global DRAM supply down by 40%, essentially front-running consumers at a higher price point, and in terms of raw demand, in an industry that takes years to adjust to demand surges. Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron have all diverted resources to HBM and advanced nodes. The production of HBM has become a very lucrative endeavor, leading memory giants to divert resources to it; Micron, for example, has already committed all of its 2026 output to HBM.
Gamers around the world have turned to the internet to voice their opinions, some of them increasingly critical of how AI companies have pushed high-end GPUs and consumer-grade RAM out of reach for most PC gamers. "I've been saving for months to get the Corsair Dominator 64GB CL30 kit," a post on Reddit said. "It was about $280 when I looked," the post read, "Fast forward today on PCPartPicker, they want $547 for the same kit? A nearly 100% increase in a couple months?" The comment section is filled with criticism for AI companies. Smartphones and consoles also appear to be among the affected parties in this shortage, with Microsoft's Xbox console expected to be disproportionately affected by its memory choices.
RAM isn’t the only component to suffer; reports of storage solutions being affected worldwide have begun to surface, with storage options including SSDs, HDDs, and MicroSD cards starting to feel the pinch. Microsoft has already begun mulling another price hike for its console products, and analysts predict the Steam Machine will cost much more than initially expected and will depend on the prices of surging components at the time.
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