My mixed views on the DDR5 RAM Price Crisis(As of March 2026 as I'm writing this)

Around the end of November 2025,

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 price to 64GB or even 96GB, 

The prices are even higher, often going for about more than $1000.

So what the hell happened?

MOTHER F***ING A.I!!!!!

That's what.

The DATACENTERS requested an RMS TITANIC-TON of RAM Orders in order to finish the construction of their A.I DATACENTERS.

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 DDR5 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.

And even if they 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.

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,

Then I saw this post on FACEBOOK sometime in Winter 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 in 1997 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 28 at the moment so I understand all of that now.

.....

Not something I wanted to post for PI-DAY but whatever. 

I needed something to work off my own anger against STUPID SAM ALTMAN without bursting a gasket like the late R. LEE ERMY in  FULL METAL JACKET(1987).