- Counterpoint Research released a new RAM pricing report
- He predicts that the price of PC RAM will almost double this quarter
- On top of that, a PC maker has sounded the alarm over rising component prices – and it’s one of many
If you were crossing your fingers for more optimistic news on the AMR crisis – because we have had glimmers of one of late – then those hopes will be dashed, I fear, by the latest developments which are decidedly negative.
The main interesting point here is that we have a new report from Counterpoint Research which observes that memory prices have almost doubled in the first quarter of 2026 so far, compared to the same period in the last quarter of 2025.
The company informs us: “Memory prices have increased 80-90% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2026 so far, according to the February issue of Counterpoint’s Memory Price Tracker, marking an unprecedented and record rise.
This is of course not comforting language, and while we are told that the main force behind these huge price increases is the increasing cost of server RAM, PC memory modules have seen a very similar increase.
Counterpoint singles out DDR4 laptop RAM (SoDIMM), an 8GB stick of which saw a 35% price increase in Q4 2025 (QoQ), with an increase currently estimated at 91% for Q1 2026 compared to the previous quarter.
Server RAM will end up being 98% higher this quarter, and even NAND modules for storage will see a major jump in the first quarter of 2026 – a projected 100% quarter-over-quarter increase in fact. Wicked.
Analysis: Industry-wide memory misery
Counterpoint basically tells us that the price of all types of memory will increase significantly this quarter, from PC RAM, to server RAM, to HBM (high-bandwidth memory, high-end modules for AI use), and even up to NAND for SSDs. As the analyst firm summarizes: “the market is experiencing a full-throttle upward trend in all segments.”
Meanwhile, we’re hearing pretty much the same story from other analyst groups, like TrendForce, which predicts that the price of DRAM will increase by 50%, or a little more, in the first quarter of 2026.
Closer to the ground in this component crisis, PC makers are also warning of tough times ahead for RAM costs, and the latest in this regard is PowerGPU, a custom gaming PC builder in the United States.
Tom’s Hardware noticed that PowerGPU posted on Presumably these “other parts” are of course the RAM, and perhaps also the GPUs which are facing their own problems due to the scarcity of video memory.
This all sounds rather worrying, and PowerGPU’s statement adds to the pile of warnings from various PC makers that we received late last year and early 2026.
While there have been more positive glimmers around the RAM crisis recently, as noted at the start – as a snapshot of DDR5 price stabilization – the overall sentiment is very negative, with predictions of not just further price increases, but huge ones. Whether it’s 50% or 100% spikes in the current quarter – take your pick of the pessimistic forecasts – it looks like we’re going to have a lot more trouble, whether it’s buying standalone RAM or PCs (or even graphics cards).
It’s likely that PC makers will try to find ways to at least partially alleviate this RAM price misery, which could mean relying on lesser memory configurations with laptops – going back to using more 8GB loadouts – or even creative fudges such as Maingear’s BYOR or the “Bring Your Own RAM” concept.
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