Anyone who has built their own PC will remember 2024, when a 32GB DDR5 memory kit could be bought for around ¥10,000. In August 2026, the same kit costs €475–540 (roughly ¥80,000–90,000) in Germany. According to price-tracking data from ComputerBase, the price of a Kingston Fury Beast 32GB DDR5 kit rose from €114 in September 2025 to €523 in August 2026—an increase of roughly 360%.
This is not a temporary supply crunch or speculative hoarding. It is the result of a fundamental reorganization of the memory semiconductor industry's production structure, driven by AI infrastructure demand. The cyclical assumptions that have governed the memory market for the past 30 years are collapsing from the ground up.
The DRAM industry's 30-year rule has broken down
Since the mid-1990s, the DRAM market has repeated boom-and-bust cycles. According to IC Insights data, more than 20 DRAM manufacturers existed in the mid-1990s, but failed to survive these cycles, leaving just 6 companies by 2021. Today it is an oligopoly, with Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron together controlling 94% of global market share.
The traditional cycle had a self-correcting mechanism. When prices spiked, manufacturers would ramp up production; within 18 months to two years, supply would catch up and prices would fall. When prices fell, capital investment would stop, eventually leading to shortages again. This cycle typically lasted two to three years. Even during the 2017–2018 memory price surge, Samsung and SK hynix successively announced production increases, and by 2019 prices had fallen to less than half their peak.
What makes the 2026 situation different from the past is a change in the nature of demand itself. High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), used in AI datacenter GPUs, consumes roughly three times the wafer area of standard DRAM per gigabyte. Micron EVP Sumit Sadana has stated that "producing 100 bits of HBM3E sacrifices about 300 bits of DDR supply." With the next generations, HBM4 and HBM4E, this ratio is expected to worsen to 4:1.
Moreover, HBM manufacturing requires roughly 20 additional process steps not found in standard DRAM production—including TSV (through-silicon via) formation and multi-layer die stacking—and once a production line has been allocated to HBM, converting it back to standard DRAM manufacturing requires large-scale retooling. HBM and DDR5 production capacity are not interchangeable.
| Metric | July 2025 (baseline) | August 2026 (current) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| German DDR5 price index (3D Center) | 100% | 486% | +386 points (approx. 4.9x) |
| US 32GB DDR5 kit (Tom's Hardware) | $100–200 | $350+ | approx. 1.8–3.5x |
| UK Corsair Vengeance 32GB (TechRadar) | £99.99 | approx. 4x level | approx. 4x |
| Japan 64GB×2 DDR5-6000 lowest price (AKIBA PC Hotline!) | Not surveyed (estimated approx. ¥270,000) | ¥316,980 | +¥44,400 month-over-month |
| China Huaqiangbei DDR5 16Gb spot (Economic Daily News) | approx. $35 | $40 | +14.29% week-over-week |
Three structural shifts occurring on the supply side
First, manufacturers' production allocation has tilted heavily toward HBM. SK hynix has allocated roughly 30% of its DRAM wafer production capacity to HBM, and industry analysts predict this will reach 40% by 2027. SK hynix stated in an earnings call that its 2026 HBM, DRAM, and NAND production capacity is "effectively sold out." Given that HBM margins substantially exceed those of standard DRAM, it is a rational business decision for manufacturers to prioritize AI-oriented products over consumer products.
Second, Micron announced in December 2025 that it would exit the consumer brand Crucial. After roughly 30 years of direct sales to the DIY market, Micron is ending this business to concentrate resources on datacenter and OEM supply. Micron's VP of Marketing, Christopher Moore, said the company is "trying to help consumers, just through different channels," but the fact remains that one option has disappeared from the DIY PC market. Crucial had long served as an affordable option for DIY PC builders. Its withdrawal is also evidence that manufacturers no longer view the consumer market as a growth area.
Third, building new factories takes time. SK hynix's new Yongin fab is scheduled to begin equipment installation in February 2027, with initial monthly wafer input of 40,000 units, rising to 80,000 by 2027. Micron's Idaho ID1 fab is expected to come online in mid-2027, but Micron itself projects that "meaningful production volume capable of changing market conditions" won't arrive until 2028 or later. Constructing a new DRAM fab costs more than $15 billion, and the process from construction to mass production takes at least 18 months. Even if construction started immediately, it is difficult to expect any easing of consumer supply before 2028.
Price increases spreading through retail channels, from Huaqiangbei to Akihabara
Another feature distinguishing this price surge from past memory booms is the speed at which it has spread from contract markets to retail markets.
In Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei district, Economic Daily News reported on August 5 that DDR5 24Gb prices jumped 14.29% week-over-week to $48, while 16Gb rose the same 14.29% to $40. Industry insiders noted that "the past six months saw relatively moderate increases, but this time the spillover from long-term supplier contracts into retail channels has clearly accelerated." Huaqiangbei is a global hub for electronic component distribution, and price fluctuations there are typically reflected in retail prices worldwide within a few weeks.
In Japan's Akihabara district, AKIBA PC Hotline! surveys found that a 64GB×2 DDR5-6000 kit rose ¥44,400 month-over-month to ¥316,980, while DDR5-6400 rose ¥32,820 to ¥367,620. While some lower-capacity kits have seen slight price drops, the shortage of high-capacity products is pronounced.
In the US, Tom's Hardware reports that a 32GB (2×16GB) DDR5 kit that could be bought for $100–200 in October 2025 is now only available starting around $350, with inventory itself limited.
TrendForce's projected price trajectory through 2027
In a July 9, 2026 report, TrendForce forecast that server DRAM contract prices in Q3 2026 would rise 13–18% quarter-over-quarter (absolute contract price figures remain undisclosed as they are subject to individual negotiation). Because the market remains in a state of undersupply, suppliers may raise quotes even further within the quarter.
For 2027, TrendForce estimates that RDIMM bit supply growth will remain limited to 15–20% year-over-year, significantly lagging behind the growth in server CPU shipments. Against this supply-demand gap, a server DRAM shortage is already priced in for 2027, with contract prices expected to continue rising quarter by quarter from the second half of 2026 through the second half of 2027. However, TrendForce expects the pace of increase to gradually moderate.
Some cloud service providers (CSPs) have already secured multi-year long-term agreements (LTAs), concentrating the pressure of price increases on buyers without LTAs, or on additional supply outside LTA allocations. This structure means smaller server operators without large-scale procurement power, along with DIY PC builders, are most susceptible to the impact.
Where is the exit?
Among memory economists and industry experts interviewed by IEEE Spectrum, the prevailing view is that restoring supply-demand balance will take "several years." Micron has explicitly stated that a meaningful resolution of the DRAM supply drought before 2028 is unlikely.
On the supply-side relief front, there is SK hynix's Yongin fab (adding 360,000 wafers per month by 2030), Micron's Idaho ID1 (online mid-2027) and its New York megafab project (total investment of $100 billion, groundbreaking January 2026), and Samsung's plan to boost HBM production by 50%. However, this additional capacity is likely to be absorbed first in filling the existing shortage, meaning any contribution to lower consumer prices will come even further down the road.
According to SemiAnalysis analysis, HBM accounts for more than 50% of GPU package costs and trades at three times the price of standard DRAM. The amount of memory installed per AI accelerator chip also continues to increase with each generation (192GB for Nvidia GB200, 288GB for AMD MI350), and there is no ceiling in sight for demand.
At the same time, there remains a risk that this cycle could reverse just as past DRAM downturns have. Hundreds of billions of dollars are planned for investment in AI datacenters, but if a moment comes when the profitability of that investment is called into question, demand could plummet sharply—triggering oversupply and a price collapse. Even in that scenario, however, whether consumers will once again be able to buy a 32GB kit for ¥10,000 depends on how much manufacturers choose to reverse their production allocation.
For individuals who enjoy building their own PCs, the immediate reality is simple: memory is no longer "a component you can wait to get cheaper."