2025-11-27 15:00:52
Concern That Skyrocketing RAM Prices Driven by AI Needs Will Cause Problems for High-End Gaming for 'Several Years'
Wesley Yin-Poole

There is increasing concern that skyrocketing RAM prices will impact high-end gaming not just in the short term, but the long term.

With the explosive growth of generative AI, AI data centers are hoovering up the world's memory and storage supply, sparking price hikes that some experts fear could last for decades. Cheap SSDs, DRAM, and HDDs are pretty much a thing of the past, with prices rising as AI demand outstrips supply.

This has already caused price rises, with PC retailer CyberPowerPC announcing a hike for memory modules across the U.S. and the UK “due to market conditions.”

“Recently, global memory (RAM) prices have surged by 500% and SSD prices have risen by 100%,” CyberPowerPC said. “This has had a direct impact on the cost of building gaming PCs since 10/1/25.” Price rises thus kick in on December 7.

The impact on PC gaming could be significant and long-lasting, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney tweeted. “RAM price increases will be a real problem for high-end gaming for several years,” he said. “Factories are diverting leading edge DRAM capacity to meet AI needs where data centers are bidding far higher than consumer device makers.”

The situation has become so out of control that, as PCWorld reports, stores are beginning to sell RAM at 'catch-of-the-day' market prices. As CyberPowerPC pointed out, these price rises come with the holidays right around the corner, which is less than ideal.

But the issue may stretch out for years to come. “The AI build-out is absolutely eating up a lot of the available chip supply, and 2026 looks to be far bigger than this year in terms of overall demand,” Dan Nystedt, vice president of research at TriOrient, told CNBC.

As CNBC points out, AI servers primarily run on processors from chip designers like Nvidia. These AI processors heavily rely on High-Bandwidth Memory or HBM. Nystedt said AI server companies are willing to pay top dollar for premium chips. “It could be very bad for PCs, laptops, consumer electronics and automotive, which depend on cheap memory chips,” he added.

And there is concern for the price of video game consoles, too. There are online rumors that Microsoft may soon be forced to up the price of Xbox consoles again in reaction to the RAM crunch. Valve has yet to announce a price for its next-gen Steam Machine, and fluctuating RAM prices may have something to do with it.

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Photo by Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed/Anadolu via Getty Images.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].

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