Headline by Michael Crider on PKMir Today perfectly captures how ridiculous the PC memory shortage has become: stores like Central Computers in the San Francisco Bay Area are starting to sell RAM at market prices, as if you were paying for the catch of the day at a seafood restaurant.
“Costs fluctuate daily as manufacturers and distributors adjust to limited supply and high demand,” according to a message posted on the store display. as Steve Lin noted. “For this reason, we are unable to display fixed prices at this time.”
Micro Center is apparently doing the same: “Due to market volatility, we ask that you contact a sales representative for pricing,” reads a captured message from the store. from Redditor CassTexas (by using Tom's Equipment).
It's hard to overstate how quickly RAM shortages are changing the availability of computers—and it could soon affect other areas, including everything from gaming consoles. to smartphones RAM is required for operation.
Yesterday, three months ago, I bought 32GB of memory for my gaming PC, and since then the price of this particular kit has more than tripled. It now costs $300 more. ($440 vs $130if you are interested; a more common version of the same kit went from 105 to 400 dollars.) Some prices have doubled since October, and while you can still find 32GB kits for as little as $230, a 64GB DDR5 kit can easily set you back $700, $800, or even $900.
Leader Moore's Statement Is Dead that Microsoft may have to raise Xbox prices again to compensate, but that Sony has stockpiled enough RAM to last the PS5 for several months.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says High-end games can take years to recover from AI-induced RAM shortages. According to him, “factories are redirecting advanced DRAM capacity to meet artificial intelligence needs, while data centers are offering much higher prices than consumer device manufacturers.”
