Many a systems builder was in for a shock when browsing for DDR5 RAM Kits.
What was originally in between $120-$300 worth of a single 32GB DUAL CHANNEL DDR5 kit now was suddenly at between $500-$800 for a single DUAL CHANNEL DDR5 kit.
Pictured above is my exact stick of
CORSAIR VENGEANCE 32GB DUAL CHANNEL CL36 DDR5 U-DIMM RAM
And as you go up a tier to 64GB or even 96GB and a tighter CL Rating,
The prices are even higher, often going for about more than $1000.
Don't have an image of Rich Schmucks.
Like I'd want to photograph them due to their distaste of Paparazzi.
So instead, I'm using this scene of King John & his Jester Sir Hiss.
So what the hell happened?
You know what:
It's them A.I DATACENTERS.
That's what.
The DATACENTERS requested an RMS TITANIC-TON of RAM Orders in order to finish the construction of their A.I DATACENTERS and get their Servers ready immediately after the opening of said DATACENTERS.
All while dealing with land owners or politicians who think the DATACENTERS opening is not advisable due to both the market and the insane amount of electricity required for powering those centers.
Yes. I used this image of the sinking of the Titanic
as a measure of how much them datacenters order....
Some might ask:
"WHY DO DATACENTERS NEED ALL THAT RAM? IT'S NOT LIKE THEY NEED RGB?"
I've looked into this and from what I've learned, the DATACENTERS aren't even actually ordering the actual kits as is.
What they're actually ordering are the SILICON WAFERS that make up the RAM KITS in the first place.
So in essence, what them A.I Datacenters are ordering are the SILICON WAFERS that make up the chips dividing the memory banks of the modules.
I mean, would a datacenter who's often got a serious business attitude ever want to use modules that have RGB built into them?
NO! They wouldn't as RGB would cheapen the image of a datacenter being all about SERIOUS BUSINESS.
The so-called HIGH BANDWIDTH MEMORY, HBM for short, is really just a row of chips as the above image has you believe.
And even if them DATACENTERS were to use traditional modules, they'd go for modules that often have a BARE PCB on them, and are of the LOWER PROFILE variety because SERVER RACKS.
And I only mentioned SAMSUNG & SK HYNIX because MICRON, the makers of CRUCIAL RAM, decided to end their CRUCIAL line of products because MONEY
While despite SAMSUNG & SK HYNIX's reason for preferring the DATACENTERS over us average schmucks, they would never abandon the Consumer Market.
Just that the orders for Consumer RAM is less than what it seems which explains the higher prices you now have to pay at places like
BEST BUY, MICROCENTER, or even CANADA COMPUTERS.
So why am I writing this?
Well, I was about to go off on a rant about the pointlessness of them A.I Companies jacking up all the ram for themselves(I'm still angry at them datacenters) and for the fact that to drive the point on how pointless building them datacenters is due to restrictions on electricity usage set against them as set by politicians....
But then I saw this post on FACEBOOK sometime in January 20 2026 where someone compared the high DDR5 Ram prices to how much money it cost for people to buy RAM in the 90s.
For those who were around in the 90s, This comparison is a bit weird.
I mean, back in the 90s, RAM was measured in MEGABYTES but I also remembered reading about how expensive it was to max out your 486 & early Pentium rigs at the time.
The price lowered a bit during the early Intel Pentium III/AMD Athlon era with people being able to afford a single stick of 128MB of PC100 ram for their gaming rigs back in the day but this is crazy.
I was born on December 1997 during the relative start of the PENTIUM II era of Computers but I didn't know about Megabytes or Gigabytes because how was toddler Me gonna understand all of that back in 1997-1999?
I'm currently 28 as of this writing so I understand all of that now.
And it's not DATACENTERS that are to blame for the RAM Price crisis.
Natural Phenomena plays a part in the crisis too as these RAM Kits are manufactured in Asian Countries like TAIWAN & SOUTH KOREA.
And I also realize that maxing out all your slots on Consumer DDR5 boards is pointless as I'm still wary about using all four slots in my B650 AORUS Board....
Not because I'm worried but because during my research, It's established that DDR5 has problems with using all four slots so it's highly recommended to use only two slots which are A2 & B2.
Even the very American MICRON TECHNOLOGIES has outsourced to TAIWAN due to how cheap it is to manufacture over there instead of domestically.
Natural Phenomena that can affect manufacturing can range from typhoons, tornadoes, wind storms....
what role do they all play?
Knocking out the power to the manufacturing, that's what.
And Silicon Chips require a very clean room to keep things safe from the elements because that's a general rule when it comes to manufacturing electronics.
Update as of March 31 2026:
Sometime during the final weekend of March 2026, I've seen some reports of DDR5 RAM prices starting to go down.
Granted they're not back to PRE-CRISIS levels but this is start of many things.....
No, the bubble is not yet close to bursting.
We're not at that panic-level yet..... at least not for us PC Enthusiasts.....
*COUGH*Dot-Com Bubble of 2000*COUGH*
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