RAM and storage is ridiculously expensive right now because of *drumroll* AI, of course, and there's little reason to think prices will drop any time soon

We can't seem to get a moment's respite in the PC gaming industry, can we? We spent the better part of this year lamenting ridiculously high GPU prices, and as soon as said prices finally start dropping, memory and storage prices start climbing.

You might have noticed this worrying trend if you've been looking for a RAM upgrade lately. Charts on pcpartpicker.com are telling: since mid-2025, DDR4 and DDR5 consumer memory kit prices have been climbing, with particularly notable spikes since September.