Two Factors Causing RAM Prices in the Market to Start Falling
Various groups, including PC builders, gamers, graphic industry players, and others reliant on Random Access Memory (RAM), can breathe a little easier. There is encouraging news regarding RAM prices in the market recently.
RAM prices in the market for DDR4 and DDR5 types are reported to be showing signs of decline, following an irrational surge over the past nearly year.
Based on the latest data from DigiTimes, spot prices for 16 GB DDR4 RAM fell by around 5% over the past month, settling at approximately $74.10 (around Rp 1.27 million).
This marks the first monthly decline since February last year. For context on how high the price increase for this component has been, a year ago the same component was priced at just $3.20.
Even after the 5% drop, the current price is still 20 times more expensive than last year.
Similar signs of decline are also visible in the DDR5 variant. 16GB DDR5 RAM has fallen to around $37.20.
The sharpest price drops are observed in China’s retail market and channel distributors, as well as on Amazon marketplace, as compiled by KompasTekno from Tom’s Hardware.
In the Chinese market, prices for some 32GB DDR5 memory kits have reportedly plummeted by up to 30%, while 8GB and 16GB DDR4 modules have dropped sharply by up to 25%. So, what is causing this sudden price decline?
This step is taken because small vendors can no longer afford to absorb components with excessively high prices, amid weak demand from home PC consumers.
The second equally intriguing cause is the recent announcement from Google.
At the end of March, the tech giant introduced “TurboQuant”, a memory compression technique claimed to reduce cache memory usage by up to six times when running large language models (LLMs).
Google’s innovation has successfully panicked RAM hoarders. They fear that demand for memory from hyperscalers (large-scale data centres) will drop drastically if TurboQuant technology is mass-produced, prompting them to rush and liquidate their RAM stocks to the market.
Although spot prices (daily transaction prices in the free market) are starting to fall, do not rush to hope that prices for OEM laptops or assembled PCs will become cheap next month.
This is because spot transactions only represent a small portion of the total memory industry turnover. Major laptop manufacturers and PC assemblers (OEMs) purchase RAM through long-term contract market schemes.
According to TrendForce research, memory prices in the contract market are projected to continue rising.
Conventional DRAM prices are estimated to surge by 58 to 63%, while NAND Flash (for SSDs) will jump 70 to 75% in the second quarter of 2026.
Therefore, if you intend to assemble a PC or simply want to add RAM capacity (especially DDR5), the current price decline momentum may be the best time to “secure” your desired components before prices rise again.