I know. That's why it was said in general. It was not aimed at you. Yours was just the post best to respond to given all the others are memes.
Made with AI.
Oh the irony...
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RAM prices are ridiculous
- Thread starter tetrasect
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Made with AI.
Oh the irony...
supersunbird
Honorary Master
Go preach to the heathens, not the devout.
Bought this stick of 16gb for just under 1k when I heard about the coming ram apocalypse in October 2025. I shouId have bought more but I didn't really think it would get this bad. See something similar is now selling for around 4-5k if you can find one.
TeamGroup ELITE 16GB (1x16GB) 5600MHz CL46 DDR5 Laptop Memory
Also bought 2x 1tb pcie 4 nvmes for around R1400 late last year. They now sell for R3500.
Paid R2400 for a 2tb external ssd at the start of the year (USB 3.2 Gen2), it's now selling for around R4500.
TeamGroup ELITE 16GB (1x16GB) 5600MHz CL46 DDR5 Laptop Memory
Also bought 2x 1tb pcie 4 nvmes for around R1400 late last year. They now sell for R3500.
Paid R2400 for a 2tb external ssd at the start of the year (USB 3.2 Gen2), it's now selling for around R4500.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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gogga_
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gogga_
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FiestaST
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FiestaST
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Lupus
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Yeah I bought 32gb 3600mhz RAM for R1700 which was already R500 more than I paid earlier, but that is now 4k.
My 32GB 6000mhz RAM is 8k
Wut
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RedViking
Nord of the South
Progenix Oj101
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Ram Cultman
Felixbf1980
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I distinctly remember back in 2016–2018 when people were losing their minds over Bitcoin. Graphics card prices skyrocketed, and everyone insisted crypto was going to replace fiat currency entirely. The doom-and-gloom commentary back then felt exactly like the panic surrounding AI today.
Then we hit 2020–2022 with the massive chip shortages, and the cycle repeated. But history always repeats itself. Mark my words, by 2029, the hype will settle and everything will be right back to normal.
Then we hit 2020–2022 with the massive chip shortages, and the cycle repeated. But history always repeats itself. Mark my words, by 2029, the hype will settle and everything will be right back to normal.
Lupus
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Not like this, GPU prices were high, but not as bad as now
Progenix Oj101
Dealer
This is at a different scale than we've ever seen before. For example, we didn't see new companies jumping on the bandwagon, swapping from Nvidia to AMD, or leaving the market. This time we've seen, as the primary example, Micron shuttering Crucial (a brand that survived many extreme dips in the market) and swapping their entire model to deprioritise selling to 3rd party memory vendors such as Corsair, Kingston, etc.
Demand for RAM from AI would have to dry up in the very immediate future (within 12 months) for 2029 to be a realistic timeframe. As it stands, 2027 is going to be worse than 2026, with 2028 looking to be worse still (even with additional supply expected around that time, DRAM and NAND vendors are looking at expanding into other markets because they don't believe it'll be enough to stabilize the market), and finally plateauing around that point for several years.
The concerning thing is "the current memory supply/demand fulfillment ratio remains at about 70%"
Without demand dropping, we need to see a nearly 50% increase in supply for pricing to start coming down. As long as the demand:supply ratio is 1:1 or higher (currently implied as 1.43:1 based on 70% fulfillment), there's no reason for pricing to drop. Supply < demand = pricing increases; supply = demand = pricing stabilizes; supply > demand = pricing drops.
2028 is expected to bring capacity up by approximately equal to what's needed for equilibrium between demand and supply, which is where the expected plateau for 2029 comes from.
Where we are right now, channel-level comms from vendors have terms like "downsizing," "I'm on the job market," and "job security is a thing of the past." Unless demand plummets before this happens, it could cause further damage to consumer supply.
Have a look at Sabrent's website - a vendor that was almost exclusively in the DRAM and NAND market. Their homepage is now 90% docking stations, hubs, HDMI splitters, charging stations, portable person fans, etc, and their menu no longer even has a link to RAM. These other items aren't new to Sabrent, but they got minor mentions on the homepage - sometimes only under "Whats new," and were certainly not the primary business focus. Today, those products are front and center, even occupying the banner space.
Kingston is splitting into the Kingston we know but only doing enterprise hardware, and a very small subsidiary that will be doing consumer hardware under the Kingston brand.
Multiple other vendors (including some big names) have been effectively EOL'ing many DDR5 SKUs as they can't get allocation until those SKUs really ARE EOL.
2029 is a hopeful prediction, but we have to hope that demand drops, there's no further damage to consumer brands, and that things don't go the way Jeff Bezos and others (looking at GeForce Now, including Nvidia) are pushing where you don't own a PC at all - you have a smart monitor with keyboard/mouse/headset, and you do everything from "boot" to work to game on the cloud... And this is a plausible re-use for AI data centers after the bubble pops.
The infrastructure is already there at a massive scale - and the options after the bubble pops are either become a profitable company by charging hundreds of millions of home and business users a monthly fee, or sell the hardware and go home. AI infrastructure doesn't need AI demand to survive.
Gigabyte, Asus, Cooler Master, MSI, etc wouldn't be happy about this (and some might not survive such a change - massive companies such as Compaq have fallen in the past), but if CPUs, RAM, and graphics cards aren't available, they won't have much choice.
I absolutely don't want to be part of the generation that saw the rise and eventual fall of the home computer, but in keeping an open mind to all eventualities it's something to consider.
Imagine this:
Buy an Asus CloudConnect AI32VRP 32" WQHD 120Hz smart monitor and get 3 months of OpenAI CloudCompute absolutely free*!
* Compatible internet connection required, billed separately by your ISP. Credit card required. CloudCompute Tier 1 has a fair usage policy of 4 hours per day. Overusage charges of R 4.99/hour or part thereof apply. Free for the first 3 months, R 299/month thereafter. Billed automatically with 30 days' cancellation notice required. Unused computing time does not roll over and has no cash value. Free offer applies to new customers only. One offer per customer. CloudCompute availability is subject to network conditions and regional capacity. In the event of system interruption, your smart monitor will continue to function as a legacy monitor. Storage, software licenses and additional computing resources may incur additional charges. T&Cs apply.
Felixbf1980
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You are remembering wrong.
During the peak of the cryptocurrency mining booms (primarily 2017–2018 and 2020–2022), GPU prices skyrocketed to 200% to 300% above their Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) due to unprecedented demand from miners and severe supply chain shortages.
Lupus
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That is now, during the crypto it was at most 200% the 1080ti was supposed to be 700 dollars sold for roughly 1200, lower end cards were 50 to 100% more, you could still just about afford a GPU then.
Progenix Oj101
Dealer
Those are extreme claims. The most expensive 3090 (the most expensive card relevant to the time period) I ever sold was a ROG Strix White Edition and Suprim X at R 41.5k, with most being around the R 34-36k range. On the days the two for R 41.5k sold, the RoE was R 14.97 and R 14.73 respectively, making the prices $ 2,772 and $ 2,817. The MSRP of the 3090 (Founders Edition) was $ 1,499, so less than 100% above MSRP.
If we look at lower end cards like the 3070, it's R 14,199 at an RoE of R 14.90, or $ 953 against an MSRP of $ 499.
RTX 3060 Ti, R 10,528 @ R 16.25 for $ 648 vs MSRP $ 399.
RTX 3060 12GB, R 10,322 @ R 14.66 for $ 704 vs MSRP $329 - this is the highest increase, but miles from 200-300%.
Going back to 2017, it was the RX 580 8GB, and I remember the price because I was ordering 200-400 cards at a time for a single customer. He got them at R 4,199/card. MSRP $ 229, R 4.2k @ R 13.32 (average for 2017) is $ 315. If we shift to the highs and lows for 2017, it's R 12.35 and R 14.59, changing Dollar value to between $ 340 and $ 288.
What makes the real figures go against your figures even harder is the local prices all include VAT, while the US MSRPs exclude tax. Additionally, all MSRPs are for reference/FE cards, while all local prices are for partner cards such as the Gaming Oc. Gaming Trio, Asus Dual, etc which always cost more than reference/FE. If we normalize pricing, these are the highs:
| Direct conversion | Ex-VAT USD | MSRP | % above MSRP (ex VAT vs ex tax) | |
| Asus RTX 3090 (2021) (premium model) | $ 2,772 | R 2,410 | $ 1,499 | 61% |
| MSI RTX 3090 (2021) (premium model) | $ 2,817 | $ 2,450 | $ 1,499 | 63% |
| RTX 3070 (2021) | $ 953 | $ 829 | $ 499 | 66% |
| RTX 3060 Ti (2022) | $ 648 | $ 563 | $ 399 | 41% |
| RTX 3060 12GB (2021) | $ 704 | $ 612 | $ 329 | 86% |
| RX 580 8GB (2017) (memory) (bulk pricing) | $ 315 (288 to 340 depending on RoE) | $ 274 (250 to 296 depending on RoE) | $ 229 | 20% (10 to 29% depending on RoE) |
| RX 580 8GB (2017) (evidence - see below) | $ 370 | $ 322 | $ 229 | 41% |
| RX 580 8GB (2018) (evidence - see below) (premium model) | $ 523 | R 455 | R 229 | 99% |
If you want some hard data on the price of the RX 580 8GB rather than me going from memory, here's a Mybroadband article from 2017 listing the card as R 4,389 at Rebel Tech (where I worked at the time), and he got a discount for bulk purchases:
AMD Radeon RX 500 vs RX 400 graphics cards – South African pricing
AMD has launched its Radeon RX 500-series graphics cards, refreshing its Polaris GPU line-up.
mybroadband.co.za
If we go for the absolute worst case I can find, the Aorus (one of the most expensive versions of the card) at Rebel Tech in early 2018 was R 6,199 and RoE on the day was R 11.86. That's $ 523 incl VAT, or $ 455 ex VAT which is 99% above MSRP.
Just received stock of Aorus RX 580 8GB Graphics Cards.
Available for R 6,199
There is very limited stock unfortunately & prices will rise for all GPUs.
Available for R 6,199
There is very limited stock unfortunately & prices will rise for all GPUs.
Were there companies selling cards at 200-300% above MSRP? Possibly. But it absolutely wasn't the norm, with the norm being less than 100% above MSRP. The norm for RAM right now is +700% on DDR5, sometimes even higher. There are some SKUs which have broken +900% (10x last year's price).
There are multiple reports on companies buying up stock and then hardware literally gathering dust in warehouses, not to mention the massive delays in the US on data centers actually being built for multiple reasons. As it stands, companies are FOMO'ing massively and it will bite a lot of them in the ass.