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Question Is the cost of RAM going up everywhere?

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What's weird is that some RAM prices on the open market (eBay, etc) don't make any sense. There's DDR5-4800 on eBay (2x16GB) selling for the same price as DDR5-7800 (also 2x16GB). It's a little silly.
 
Even DDR3 are now increasing the prices. At this pace, even DDR2 would be affected if this madness continues.
 
DZero said:
Even DDR3 are now increasing the prices. At this pace, even DDR2 would be affected if this madness continues.
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I made good money as a middle man over 20 years ago. Identify a need, find a source and supply it for profit. Maybe i should buy 30 pin single in line memory modules SIMMS from the 1980s and 72 pin from the early 90s. Surely there is profit to be made. 😉
 
I'm watching in amazement the graphics forum where I see discussions on next gen Vram sizes. 12- 16GB minimum, 24-32GB for higher end stuff. Here I'm thinking, "is this what cognitive dissonance looks like?". Folks, a barren future is unfolding, with the only "solution", a general economic crash. choose your poison.
 
Fjodor2001 said:
Next to join in and take advantage of the AI craze to bump prices is apparently HDDs:

wccftech.com

Western Digital Has No More HDD Capacity Left, as CEO Reveals Massive AI Deals; Brace Yourself For Price Surges Ahead!

HDD capacity from one of the world's largest manufacturers has started to run dry, according to WD's CEO, as major LTAs have been signed out.
wccftech.com wccftech.com
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I was not naive last fall and I did get both SSD and more RAM, I now even have a functioning backup PC, but I figured HDD could hardly be a victim of the AI bubble. Looks like I was wrong... I'm not a data hoarder though, so I could probably get away with just deleting stuff and reorganizing, but my failing to do that for years means, sigh, I might be a bit of a data hoarder after all...

Its still a bit puzzling how HDD's are useful for AI with their access and transfer rates, but for now I guess they scrape everything multiple times and just shelve it away for later curating and training?
 
I have some WD Black 1 and 2 TB HDDs and a blue or 2 as well. What is the current best freeware solution for preparing them for sale? We are not still writing 0s are we? That used to take forever. May as well leverage this latest Derpocalypse to my advantage.
 
DAPUNISHER said:
I have some WD Black 1 and 2 TB HDDs and a blue or 2 as well. What is the current best freeware solution for preparing them for sale? We are not still writing 0s are we? That used to take forever. May as well leverage this latest Derpocalypse to my advantage.
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I would write something if you have anything sensitive on them, otherwise probably wouldn't worry about it. https://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/
 
A 5500 is a fast as a 12400 with DDR4, for almost half the money. A 5600x is on par with the i5 using DDR5. None of the dead platform CPUs are that far behind budget Zen 4.

Until DDR4 dries up, expect this trend to continue. Retail sales being down is as much a sign of the weakening economy as it is hyperinflation in the PC parts market. People have less discretionary income. Essentials like housing, transportation, and groceries are more expensive. And as Steve's chart shows, that PC they bought or built during the human malware and crypto boom, can still do everything just fine.

Screenshot 2026-02-17 092758.png
 
DAPUNISHER said:
A 5500 is a fast as a 12400 with DDR4, for almost half the money. A 5600x is on par with the i5 using DDR5. None of the dead platform CPUs are that far behind budget Zen 4.

Until DDR4 dries up, expect this trend to continue. Retail sales being down is as much a sign of the weakening economy as it is hyperinflation in the PC parts market. People have less discretionary income. Essentials like housing, transportation, and groceries are more expensive. And as Steve's chart shows, that PC they bought or built during the human malware and crypto boom, can still do everything just fine.

View attachment 138441
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From a purely financial standpoint regarding retail sales, I'd say that's a function of supply and demand. As the prices go up for consumers, the demand for goods sold to consumers goes down. For the economy as a whole, it's good for businesses, as they're extracting maximum profit from their goods produced. You're 100% right regarding essentials though, we've averaged nearly 5% inflation each year from 2020 to 2025, and wages haven't kept up with 25% inflation over these last 5 years.
 
Golgatha said:
From a purely financial standpoint regarding retail sales, I'd say that's a function of supply and demand. As the prices go up for consumers, the demand for goods sold to consumers goes down. For the economy as a whole, it's good for businesses, as they're extracting maximum profit from their goods produced. You're 100% right regarding essentials though, we've averaged nearly 5% inflation each year from 2020 to 2025, and wages haven't kept up with 25% inflation over these last 5 years.
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Well, it's good for businesses until it's not. When prices go past the point where enough people buy, businesses quit extracting maximum profit and slowly (or sometimes, not so slowly) die.
 
From the techspot article linked above -

The memory crunch isn't stopping at CPUs. Graphics cards are feeling the pressure, too. Trend data from PC Part Picker shows prices for Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs climbing again in recent weeks. Furthermore, the RTX 5070 Ti has effectively vanished, and Zotac recently expressed concerns about the survival of GPU manufacturers.
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EVGA is gone. The future of ARC dGPU is seriously in question. At least for gaming. Zotac is sounding their alarm. AMD offers few choices and has nothing under $300. Nvidia is in no hurry to give gamers new cards, and is eliminating SKUs. Their AIBs have to source their own VRAM. I can definitely see how some of them will not survive this if it goes on as long as expected. Big players could leverage their buying power and positions to kill off smaller companies through a war of attrition.
 
maddie said:
We should be thinking of lowering voltages to extend component lifetime. Rig for an extended duty cycle. Living on the edge is no longer useful or wise.
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I am a quiet computing supporter. Use frame caps. Run the silent bios, negative CO or ECO mode on the CPUs. Running JEDEC on ram.

Seeing what MSI is pumping through the new 5090 should be filed under crimes against humanity. 😝
 
bba-tcg said:
Well, it's good for businesses until it's not. When prices go past the point where enough people buy, businesses quit extracting maximum profit and slowly (or sometimes, not so slowly) die.
Click to expand...
The problem is there is no mechanism for the consumer market to correct this issue. Everything is being sold business to business. Now, in my opinion, it's a circle jerk of money changing hands between and handful of very large businesses, but the end product's profits don't justify the CAPEX; said another way, this AI bubble has to burst at some point. That said, for the present moment, the suppliers of all this hardware are making a killing selling almost exclusively business to business.
 
DAPUNISHER said:
I am a quiet computing supporter. Use frame caps. Run the silent bios, negative CO or ECO mode on the CPUs. Running JEDEC on ram.

Seeing what MSI is pumping through the new 5090 should be filed under crimes against humanity. 😝
Click to expand...
MSI and ASROCK should quit, heck, even the Chinese knows how to make motherboards compared to them!
 
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