‘The prices will continue to rise’: Better get your new gaming PC or system upgrades now because this problem isn’t getting any better, says Maingear’s CEO
The life of a PC gamer in this day and age comes down to basically bouncing from one shortage to the next and tracking prices as if you were moonlighting as a market analyst. Well, here’s an early heads up: The RAM apocalypse/hellscape/nightmare we’re living in right now isn’t about to get any better, says Maingear CEO Wallace Santos (via Wccftech).
Given how expensive RAM is right now, many gamers are holding off on their upgrades in the hopes that the market will improve in the next few months. It makes sense—when you’re seeing RAM kits sold for twice the price that they used to be sold for, it’s hard not to want to wait it out.
The Black Friday sales have only highlighted this, when we look back at the offers around Prime Day in July—just over four months ago, remember—we’ve seen prices rising from $170 for a 64 GB DDR5 kit to at least $600.
When faced with a question regarding memory shortages that could potentially extend into 2027 (oh, joy) and how to navigate rising prices, Santos said: “For consumers that are interested in getting a new PC or upgrading their current system’s GPU, SSD or RAM, they should consider shopping now and looking for offerings that have not seen price increases yet.”
Santos revealed that Maingear, as a system builder, has already seen DRAM prices skyrocket due to shortages. It has yet to pass on these price changes to its customers, but much like any other company, there might come a time when it’ll have to.
Based on what Santos told Wccftech, it sounds like the current situation with RAM pricing is only the tip of the iceberg, and things will get worse over time. That’s why it makes sense to explore some Black Friday RAM deals (there aren’t many, to be fair) and buy your RAM now.
System builders like Maingear have the benefit of buying hardware in bulk, so it’s probably never as bad for them as it is for us, the unlucky PC owners. But Maingear also isn’t the only company to potentially take a hit due to rising memory prices.
Nvidia always used to ship both the VRAM and the GPU die to its board partners, but it’s now said to only provide the GPU, letting graphics card manufacturers find a good source of VRAM on their own. Needless to say, that’ll probably get pretty pricey for some companies, and some of that cost might result in raised retail prices.
The prices are bad now and are unlikely to get any better, but hey, it gets even worse: Maingear’s CEO also says that stock levels might become constrained over time. It does make sense, but I don’t want to hear it—let me stay in denial for a little while longer.
“I anticipate that the prices will continue to rise and then we will eventually have to increase our lead times as stock and allocation becomes constrained, but we are in constant communication with our vendors and will delay these increases for as long as we possibly can,” Santos said.
It’s important to remember that RAM is just one side of the coin here. Memory shortages may also result in higher prices on graphics cards and SSDs. Prebuilts are semi-safe right now, but who knows what the market will look like in a few months.
It really does sound like it’s better to shop now while there are at least some Black Friday gaming deals to offset the price increase. I can’t see things getting any better in the near future.
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