RAM prices have skyrocketed, peaking at $4,000.

As tech corporations worldwide continue to pour millions of dollars into the AI ​​race, attention is no longer focused solely on Nvidia's GPUs. The enormous demand for memory to train large language models is driving RAM prices to incredibly high levels.

The current AI operation and training demands a combination of GPUs with the largest VRAM capacity, along with high-speed RAM and SSD/HDD drives to power the entire system. This surge in demand has caused RAM prices to skyrocket in recent months. For example, in the US market, users may have to pay over $4,000 for a 128GB RAM module from retailers like Micro Center.

This is the clearest evidence of how the AI ​​wave is impacting the computer component market. Not long ago, 32GB of DDR5 RAM on a high-end PC was considered a relatively affordable component, but now, that number has unexpectedly skyrocketed from 100 Euros to 400 Euros or even higher.

Based on that ratio, many people expect a 128GB kit to cost between 1,600 and a maximum of 2,000 Euros. However, citing supply shortages, the Micro Center chain of stores is listing the Corsair Vengeance 6400 MHz RGB DDR5 128GB kit at a price of up to $4,199 USD. Paradoxically, despite the exorbitant price due to scarcity, the shelves displaying DDR5 RAM modules in the store are still full of products, yet hardly anyone is paying attention to them.

This sluggish sales stem from the reality of consumer demand. Unlike GPUs – components that can deliver significant graphics performance and FPS increases – upgrading RAM doesn't create a similar breakthrough for the vast majority of average users.

Under normal usage conditions, 128GB of storage is completely unnecessary and considered a huge waste. This 'high-end' hardware configuration only truly benefits a small group of professional users who need massive memory for specialized tasks such as rendering, processing millions of polygons in ZBrush software, high-quality video editing with many complex plugins, or running internal AI programs.

Currently, among the dozens of products on the market, RAM and SSDs are the two component groups most heavily affected by price gouging. The imbalance between the demand for new technology and the supply has inadvertently created unreasonably high costs in the market.