Capital & Compute

RAM prices in 2026: what a kit costs, and whether to buy now

Tracker· Updated October 7, 2026

Memory is the one PC part that got several times more expensive in a year, and the official inflation numbers barely show it. This page tracks what you would actually pay today, what the chip market underneath it is doing, and what every forecaster on record says about when it ends.

How much does RAM cost right now, and should you buy or wait?

A 32GB DDR5 kit costs roughly $456 to $590 in the US right now, about $14.25 to $18.44 per GB, against a pre-shortage price near $95. DDR4 is roughly 56% cheaper per GB at $7.77, so an older platform is the cheapest way out. On timing, buy rather than wait: no forecaster on record sees meaningful relief before late 2027, and the DDR4 chip spot price just set a fresh high for this tracker at $46.32 as of Oct 6, 2026. The cause is the AI build-out draining DRAM supply faster than fabs can refill it.

Recent updates
  • Oct 7, 2026TrendForce published its 4Q26 contract forecast on September 30: conventional DRAM up 10-15% quarter over quarter (from 13-18% in 3Q26) and NAND Flash up 15-20% (from 10-15%), with no separate server DRAM figure this quarter, so the server spoke now cites the conventional range that covers it. DDR4 1Gx8 3200 spot held near its high at US$46.321 (DRAMeXchange Daily Express, October 6), barely up from US$46.107 on September 24. Server RDIMM jumped: the tracked median rose to US$43.73 per GB from US$41.09, and the cheapest 32GB module went from US$999.99 to US$1,299.99. Retail kept climbing: the cheapest tracked 32GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit rose to US$456 from US$429, and the 64GB DDR5 median reached US$20.30 per GB. The memory-maker ETF eased to US$59.52. BLS has not yet published September PPI or CPI.
  • Sep 26, 2026DDR4 spot set another high. The TrendForce DRAMeXchange Daily Express close for September 24 put the mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 3200 chip at US$46.107, up from US$45.786 on September 16, with the weekly release describing consumer demand as sluggish and prices held up by supplier quotes. Server RDIMM firmed: the tracked median rose to US$41.09 per GB from US$38.48, the 16GB floor jumped to US$44.37 per GB after the cheapest Samsung listing left the in-stock table, the 64GB floor rose to US$35.08, and the 128GB tier is back in stock at US$4,999.99. The cheapest tracked 32GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit edged up to US$429 from US$425, and its average price climbed to about US$604. The memory-maker ETF rose to US$61.91. BLS has not published the September PPI or CPI yet, TrendForce has not published a 4Q26 contract forecast (the 3Q26 figures stand), and Micron reports its fiscal fourth quarter on September 30.
  • Sep 16, 2026The spot rally did not turn. The September 11 dip proved to be a two-day wobble: the TrendForce DRAMeXchange Daily Express close for September 16 put the mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 3200 chip at US$45.786, a new high for this tracker, with buying interest still described as subdued and DDR4 2Gx8 branded chips still seeing significant downward adjustments. Prices are rising on firm supplier quotes rather than on demand. Two weekly Memory Spot Price Update readings missed by the last refresh are backfilled (US$43.64 on August 26 and US$44.54 on September 1), so the series no longer jumps straight from August 10 to September 11. The BLS lock on the computers CPI has cleared and the August print is a jump to 38.020 from 36.641, the largest monthly move in the series this tracker carries, which is the shortage finally showing up in consumer prices. Semiconductor PPI is unchanged at 28.472, still a fourth straight monthly fall, so the producer and consumer indices are now moving in opposite directions. Every tracked server RDIMM low is unchanged from the September 11 read. The memory ETF is US$56.14, down from US$58.56. HBM contract figures stand (no newer per-gigabit contract figure has been published), but a dated spot reading is added: Seoul Economic Daily on August 31 put a 36GB HBM3E stack at US$2,100 on the resale market, four to five times the long-term contract price.
$456 to $590
32GB DDR5 kit at retail
$14.25 to $18.44 per GB, two trackers
$7.77
DDR4 per GB at retail
56% cheaper than DDR5, the escape hatch
$46.32
DDR4 1Gx8 chip spot
+280% since Nov 2025, a legacy part in the worst squeeze
-27%
Memory-maker ETF (DRAM)
$59.52, down from a $81.34 high

What a DDR5 kit has actually cost

Verified snapshot · September 25, 2026

2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30

  • Cheapest tracked
  • Average listing
2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit price, cheapest and average tracked, 2025-04-04 to 2026-10-07 A two line chart over 51 readings. The cheapest tracked price moves from $59 to $456, a rise of 673 percent. The average listing moves from $125 to $592. The vertical axis runs $0 to $800. $0$200$400$600$800 Apr 4 2025Oct 7 2026 $456
2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit price, cheapest and average tracked, 2025-04-04 to 2026-10-07 (verified snapshot, September 25, 2026)
DateCheapest trackedAverage listing
2025-04-04$59$125
2025-06-28$50$130
2025-09-04$63$131
2025-11-11$98$274
2026-01-18$195$545
2026-03-27$390$542
2026-06-03$201$576
2026-08-10$390$584
2026-09-08$420$585
2026-09-12$425$577
2026-09-16$429$583
2026-09-20$429$603
2026-09-24$429$603
2026-10-07$456$592
Cheapest and average tracked price for one mainstream DDR5 kit tier, so the shape of the shortage is visible and not only its latest level. Two lines because retail is a range: the minimum is the best price found across tracked retailers, the average is what a typical listing asks. Readings are roughly fortnightly through 2025 and daily from late August 2026. The tracker keeps a rolling window and resamples its own history between reads, so this series is replaced wholesale on each refresh rather than appended to, and it reflects one dated read. Source: WhereIsMyRAM (DropReference) US DDR5 price chart, 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 tier, read September 11 2026 from the chart page own embedded series data. Multi-retailer aggregated tracker, so a secondary source. The tracker states its charts exclude Amazon listings, so this series is not directly comparable with the Amazon-only per-GB figures in the retail block. This read restated parts of the pre-August 2026 history that the August 15 2026 read had recorded differently (the early-2026 minimum now reads about US$195 where it previously read US$150), so the earlier points are superseded, not merged.

Buy now or wait? The verdict by situation

Every forecaster on record points the same way, so the honest answer is unusually blunt: waiting is a bet nobody credible is making. What changes by situation is what you buy, not whether you buy. Each verdict below names the forecaster behind it. For the timing question on its own, how long RAM prices will stay high and the date each forecaster gives for relief, see when will RAM prices drop.

If youVerdictBecause
You need memory this monthBuy nowNo forecaster on record sees meaningful relief before late 2027. Waiting costs you the upside of a falling market that nobody is forecasting.Gartner, Counterpoint Research, Intel
You can wait one quarterBuy nowTrendForce expects DRAM contract prices to keep rising through 2026, and the chip spot market set a fresh record in the week of July 21. A quarter of waiting is a quarter of paying more.TrendForce
You can wait a full yearBuy now, but watch the equity signalGartner sees no meaningful relief before late 2027 and Counterpoint puts the earliest realistic inflection at Q4 2027, so a year of waiting probably still lands you in a tight market. The one genuine counter-signal is that memory-maker equities have already rolled over.Gartner, Counterpoint Research
Your platform takes DDR4Buy DDR4, and buy it nowAt retail DDR4 still costs about 56% less per GB than DDR5, so the older platform is the cheap escape hatch even though DDR4 is in the worse supply squeeze. That discount is the thing most at risk: fabs are winding DDR4 down, and its chip spot price is the one setting records.TrendForce spot data, RAM Prices USA
You are speccing an AI or local-LLM machineBuy less, faster memory than you plannedCapacity is what got expensive. Dropping one tier of capacity saves more than dropping a speed grade, because the per-GB price is what moved, not the per-module premium for speed.Derived from the per-GB retail spread above

Check your own configuration

Verified snapshot · 2026-10-07
Cheapest tracked DDR5 32GB kit
$456
Server DDR5 RDIMM, per GB
$29.37 to $41.15
Memory-maker ETF (DRAM)
$59.52
I am buying
Capacity
I need it

Buy now

Contract prices are still forecast upward and retail is following, so a quarter of waiting is a quarter of paying more.

Today's benchmark: 32GB DDR5 runs $14.25 to $18.44 per GB, which is $456 to $590 for the whole kit. Read from the last verified snapshot.

This flips to "waiting is defensible" when the 30-day retail move turns negative and the next quarterly contract forecast is flat or lower. The forecast for 4Q26 is 10 to 15%.

Live figures come from DatacenterDisk (server RDIMM street prices), WhereIsMyRAM (consumer DDR5 kits, multi-retailer) and StockAnalysis (ETF quote). Contract percentages are TrendForce forecasts for 4Q26. Aggregated retail readings are secondary sources, not manufacturer prices. Everything else on this page is the verified snapshot dated 2026-10-07.

What a gigabyte of memory costs, by channel

Most of the confusion about memory prices comes from four different numbers all being called the price of RAM. A gigabyte costs $7.77 as a DDR4 kit at retail, $17.50 as a DDR5 kit, $12.00 to $12.80 as HBM3E on an AI supply contract, and $46.32 as a single mainstream DDR4 chip on the open spot market. All four are true at once. The chart puts them on one axis so the gaps are visible, and draws a range rather than a point wherever the sources genuinely disagree.

Price per gigabyte of memory by sales channel, August 2026A horizontal range chart of the price per gigabyte of memory across four channels. A DDR4 retail kit is $7.77 per GB, HBM3E on an AI contract is $12.00 to $12.80, a DDR5 retail kit is $17.50, HBM4 on contract is $16.00, and a mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 chip on the spot market is $46.32.Retail kitAI contractChip spot$0.00$10.00$20.00$30.00$40.00$50.00DDR4 kit, retail$7.77HBM3E, AI contract$12.00 - $12.80HBM4, AI contract$16.00DDR5 kit, retail$17.50DDR4 1Gx8 chip, spot$46.32
Price per gigabyte of memory by sales channel, August 2026
ChannelPrice per GBSold through
DDR4 kit, retail$7.77Retail kit
HBM3E, AI contract$12.00 - $12.80AI contract
HBM4, AI contract$16.00AI contract
DDR5 kit, retail$17.50Retail kit
DDR4 1Gx8 chip, spot$46.32Chip spot
Price per GB across the four channels memory is sold through, as of October 7, 2026. The exotic AI memory blamed for the shortage costs less per gigabyte on contract than a consumer DDR5 kit at retail, and the small legacy DDR4 chip on the spot market costs more than double either.Source: RAM Prices USA, DropReference, Seoul Economic Daily reporting DigiTimes, and TrendForce

Retail memory prices by capacity

Aggregated retail prices, not spot or contract. Two independent retail trackers disagree on the level, so every row is a range rather than a single price: RAM Prices USA reads Amazon listings only, DropReference tracks a wider basket of DDR5 kits across multiple retailers. Kit prices at the range edges are derived from the published per-GB figure where a tracker publishes per-GB rather than per-kit. Treat the low end as a good price to hunt for and the high end as what a typical listing asks.

KitPricePer GB
16GB DDR5 (2x8GB)$296$18.50
32GB DDR5 (2x16GB)$456 to $590$14.25 to $18.44
64GB DDR5 (2x32GB)$1299$20.30
16GB DDR4 (2x8GB)$127$7.95
32GB DDR4 (2x16GB)$129 to $250$4.03 to $7.81
64GB DDR4 (2x32GB)$547$8.55

Per-capacity detail, price history and the FAQs for each generation live on the DDR5 price tracker, the DDR4 price tracker, and the HBM price tracker.

RAM price index: 380 (November 2025 = 100)

Rebased so the base month reads 100, the mainstream DDR4 chip spot price now sits at a RAM price index of about 380 as of Oct 2026, meaning the raw memory chip costs roughly +280% more than in the November 2025 base month. Over the same window the two U.S. government price gauges below barely moved, and both turned down in the June 2026 print. This index tracks one small legacy chip on the spot market, so read it as the upstream pressure on retail prices rather than as the price of anything you can buy.

380
RAM price index
November 2025 = 100, DDR4 chip spot (TrendForce)
+280%
Change since the base month
Nov 2025 to Oct 2026

The divergence, in one chart

Everything below is rebased so that november 2025 = 100. That puts the government indices and the memory chip on the same starting line, so you can see how far they part ways. The memory chip spot price shoots up to 380. What is new as of the August 2026 prints is that the two government lines no longer move together: the semiconductor producer index has fallen to 96 while the computers consumer index has climbed to 111. Producers are being paid less for chips at the same time shoppers are being charged more for the computers built from them, which is what a shortage looks like once it reaches the till.

Memory chip spot price versus government price indices, rebased to November 2025 = 100A line chart rebased to November 2025 equals 100. The U.S. semiconductor producer price index falls to about 96 while the computers consumer price index rises to about 111, and the DDR4 chip spot price rises to about 380.0100200300400Jan 2024Jul 2024Jan 2025Jul 2025Jan 2026Jul 2026Semiconductor PPI96Computers CPI111DDR4 chip spot380
Memory chip spot price versus government price indices, rebased to November 2025 = 100
DateSemiconductor PPIComputers CPIDDR4 chip spot
2024-01-01107107
2024-04-01107108
2024-07-01103105
2024-10-01104102
2025-01-01102100
2025-04-01102102
2025-07-01101103
2025-10-01100
2025-11-18105
2025-12-09140
2026-03-01102103
2026-05-01102104
2026-06-03286
2026-07-0198107
2026-07-21337
2026-08-10349
2026-09-11371
2026-10-06380
Government price indices versus the DRAM chip spot price, November 2025 = 100. The spot chip price more than tripled to 380. The two government lines have now split: semiconductor PPI is at 96 and computers CPI at 111.Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and TrendForce

Memory chip price increase: the DDR4 chip in dollars

Here is the same memory chip price increase in plain dollars, not an index. This is the spot price of a single mainstream DDR4 chip (a 1Gx8 part, which holds exactly 1 GB), as quoted in TrendForce's weekly updates and official DRAMeXchange daily snapshots. It went from about $12 to about $46 in roughly eight months, with a plateau in the spring before climbing again, breaking $40 in July, and setting another high in August.

DDR4 1Gx8 chip spot price in US dollars, late 2025 to Oct 2026A line chart of the mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 3200 chip spot price, rising from about $12 in November 2025 to about $46 in August 2026, with a plateau near $32 in spring 2026.$0$10$20$30$40$50Jan 2026Mar 2026May 2026Jul 2026Sep 2026DDR4 1Gx8 spot$46
DDR4 1Gx8 chip spot price in US dollars, late 2025 to Oct 2026
DateDDR4 1Gx8 spot
2025-11-12$12
2025-12-03$17
2026-04-28$33
2026-06-03$35
2026-06-30$36
2026-07-15$40
2026-08-07$42
2026-08-26$44
2026-09-11$45
2026-09-24$46
2026-10-06$46
Mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s chip spot price, selected official readings. Latest: $46.32 on Oct 6, 2026.Source: TrendForce, Memory Spot Price Updates and DRAMeXchange Daily Express: mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 3200MT/s chip

What this means if you are buying RAM

A memory chip is not a memory stick. The spot figures above are what a buyer pays on the open market for bare silicon, before it is assembled into a module, branded, and sold at retail. Most retail and PC-maker buying runs on contract prices, which move slower and sit below the spot spikes. So a chip spot price tripling does not mean your next 16 GB stick costs three times as much, and the retail table above is the number to plan around. The spot line is the pressure gauge, not the price tag.

The most useful practical fact on this page is the DDR4 discount. At retail, DDR4 costs about 56% less per gigabyte than DDR5, so if your motherboard takes DDR4 you can sidestep most of this market. That sits oddly beside the spot data, where DDR4 is the generation in the worse squeeze: as fabs shift capacity to DDR5 and to high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators, they are winding down DDR4 production and legacy chip spot prices have gone vertical. Both are true, because the squeeze is concentrated in small legacy chips on the spot market while finished modules still sell off an older cost base. That reallocation is deliberate, not an accident of supply, as covered in why RAM is so expensive in 2026. The corollary is that the DDR4 discount is the thing most at risk from here.

The same squeeze has now reached graphics memory, which is the one consumer market where the pass-through is fully visible: Nvidia has raised the price of the GPU-and-memory kits it sells board partners three times in 2026, compounding to roughly a third to a half more than January on a mid-range card. The arithmetic, and whether to buy a card now or wait, is in why GPU prices keep rising in 2026, and the current MSRP-versus-street readings by model are on the GPU price tracker. Storage went the same way for the same reason: NAND wafer capacity moved to enterprise SSDs and HBM, and what a terabyte of flash costs now is tracked on the SSD and NAND price tracker.

For DDR5, TrendForce reported spot prices up 307% from September to November 2025. Framework, which publishes its own module pricing, put its DDR5 modules at $10 per GB in December 2025 and at a $12 to $16 per GB range by February 2026, and reported in July 2026 that its LPCAMM2 costs had come in at more than double the prior inventory. That is a manufacturer stating what it pays, which is a stronger signal than any aggregator basket.

The Roundhill Memory ETF (ticker DRAM) is included as a daily, free market read on the same story: it holds Micron, SK Hynix, Samsung, Sandisk and other memory makers. It is an equity signal, a bet on memory makers' profits, not a measure of chip prices, and it is now $59.52, down 27% from its $81.34 high even as chip spot prices set records. Read strictly as a market signal and not as advice to touch it, that divergence is what a late cycle looks like: the forward-looking vote cools before the spot snapshot does. The signals that the memory cycle is peaking post works through what would have to happen for that read to be right.

For where the trend goes from here, and the practical buy-now-or-wait call by buyer type, see the 2026 RAM price forecast, which maps what TrendForce, Gartner, Micron, and Intel each expect for the timing of relief. For how the squeeze started and what it will take to end, see the 2026 memory shortage explained, and for concrete ways to spend less right now, how to save money on RAM in 2026.

DDR5 at retail: how the kit price got here

The dollar chart above is the bare DDR4 chip at spot. For DDR5, the number most readers care about is the finished kit on a store shelf. TrendForce quotes DDR5 spot moves mostly in percentages (its DDR5 spot rose 307% from September to November 2025), so the history here is approximate reported retail prices for one consistent configuration, a 32GB DDR5-6000 kit, rather than a continuous feed. The current level is in the retail table above.

Reported retail price of a 32GB DDR5-6000 kit, 2025 to 2026Bar chart of the approximate reported retail price of a 32GB DDR5-6000 memory kit: about $80 in mid-2025, about $432 by early 2026, and about $400 by March 2026.$0$100$200$300$400$500Mid 2025$80Early 2026$432Mar 2026$400
Reported retail price of a 32GB DDR5-6000 kit, 2025 to 2026
ItemValue
Mid 2025$80
Early 2026$432
Mar 2026$400
Approximate reported retail price of a 32GB DDR5-6000 kit. It rose more than 5x from mid-2025 to early 2026, then eased a little as a spring correction set in. Reported snapshots, not a continuous series.Source: Newegg Insider, DDR5 Memory in 2026: prices, supply and speed tiers (32GB DDR5-6000 kit)

DDR4 chip spot price: the readings

The exact TrendForce readings behind the dollar chart. One 1Gx8 chip is 1 GB, so the price column is also the chip-level cost per GB for that specific legacy part.

WeekDDR4 1Gx8 spotvs. first reading
Nov 12, 2025$12.18+0%
Nov 18, 2025$12.76+5%
Dec 3, 2025$16.73+37%
Dec 9, 2025$17.06+40%
Apr 28, 2026$32.50+167%
May 5, 2026$32.40+166%
Jun 3, 2026$34.80+186%
Jun 9, 2026$35.90+195%
Jun 30, 2026$36.00+196%
Jul 7, 2026$37.14+205%
Jul 15, 2026$39.80+227%
Jul 21, 2026$41.10+237%
Aug 7, 2026$42.45+249%
Aug 10, 2026$42.50+249%
Aug 26, 2026$43.64+258%
Sep 1, 2026$44.54+266%
Sep 11, 2026$45.21+271%
Sep 16, 2026$45.79+276%
Sep 24, 2026$46.11+279%
Oct 6, 2026$46.32+280%

Get each breakdown before it makes the rounds

You get one email when a new source-backed analysis goes live: what AI agents actually cost, which models are worth running, and what the benchmarks really mean. No hype.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

How this tracker stays honest

  • Primary sources for the spot and index data. Government indices come straight from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; chip spot prices come from TrendForce's published Memory Spot Price Update releases and official DRAMeXchange Daily Express snapshots, quoted in dollars with the observation date. No paid feeds.
  • Retail figures are aggregated and labeled. No free primary retail feed exists, so the retail table combines two independent retail trackers and says which figure came from which. Where they disagree, the page prints the range rather than picking a favourite. Where only one covers a tier, it prints a single number and says so.
  • Spot, contract and retail are three different markets. Spot is bare chips on the open market, contract is what module makers and PC builders mostly pay, retail includes assembly and margin. The DDR4 1Gx8 chip in particular is a small legacy part in an end-of-life squeeze, which is why its per-GB price sits far above any kit you can buy. It is an upstream indicator, not a shopping price.
  • HBM figures are contract prices from the trade press. They are attributed to the outlet that published them and are not comparable channel-for-channel with a consumer kit.
  • Periodic readings, not a live ticker. The free TrendForce figures are published every week or two, so the spot series is a set of dated readings. The government indices are monthly and get revised for up to four months (October 2025 CPI is missing because of the 2025 appropriations lapse, so that point is left blank rather than guessed).

Memory is one of the largest line items in the cost of AI compute, so this connects directly to the rest of the site: see how much RAM a local LLM needs for what these prices mean if you are building a machine, what CXMT is for the one supply-side force big enough to eventually push prices down, where the $2 trillion of new fab capex lands for why none of it arrives before December 2028, the AI model tracker for per-token model prices, and the cost-per-task calculator for what a real coding task costs to run.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a 32GB DDR5 kit cost right now?
About $456 to $590, or roughly $14.25 to $18.44 per GB, as of October 7, 2026. The spread is real rather than sloppiness: two independent retail trackers read different baskets, one Amazon-only and one a wider multi-retailer set of DDR5 kits, and they disagree on the level by about 50%. Treat the low end as a good price worth hunting for and the high end as what a typical listing asks. A comparable kit sold for roughly $95 before the shortage.
Should I buy RAM now or wait for prices to drop?
Buy now, in almost every case. TrendForce expects DRAM contract prices to keep rising through 2026, Gartner sees no meaningful relief before late 2027, Counterpoint Research puts the earliest realistic inflection at Q4 2027, and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan says the memory industry told him there is no relief until 2028. A new memory fab takes 18 to 24 months to build, so waiting a quarter or even a year most likely means paying more, not less. The one genuine counter-signal is that memory-maker equities have already rolled over, which sometimes leads the chips.
Is DDR4 cheaper than DDR5 right now?
Yes, by a wide margin at retail: about $7.77 per GB for DDR4 against $17.50 for DDR5, so DDR4 is roughly 56% cheaper per gigabyte. This surprises people because DDR4 is the generation in the worse supply squeeze: fabs are winding it down and its low-density chip spot price is the one setting records. Both facts are true at once. The squeeze is concentrated in small legacy chips sold on the spot market, while finished DDR4 modules at retail still carry an older, cheaper cost base. If your motherboard takes DDR4, it is the cheapest way through this market, and that discount is the thing most at risk over the next year.
Why are RAM prices so high in 2026?
AI data-center demand has outrun memory supply. Cloud providers expanded DDR5 server orders faster than expected through late 2025, draining inventories, and chipmakers shifted capacity toward high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators. That left a shortage across mainstream DRAM. TrendForce spot data shows the mainstream DDR4 chip price rising from about $12 in November 2025 to $46.32 as of Oct 6, 2026, and DDR5 spot prices up 307% from September to November 2025.
What does HBM cost per GB, and is it really the cause?
HBM3E runs about $1.50 to $1.60 per gigabit and HBM4 about $2.00, which works out to roughly $12.00 to $12.80 and $16.00 per GB. The striking part is that HBM3E on an AI supply contract now costs less per gigabyte than a consumer DDR5 kit at retail. HBM did not get expensive so much as it got prioritized: it earns more per wafer, so capacity moved to it and mainstream DRAM went short. These are contract prices negotiated with chipmakers, not retail, so the two channels are not comparable one for one.
What is the RAM price index in 2026?
This tracker rebases the mainstream DDR4 chip spot price so that November 2025 reads 100. On that basis the RAM price index sits at about 380 as of Oct 2026, meaning the raw memory chip costs roughly +280% more than at the base month. Over the same window the U.S. semiconductor producer price index actually fell, which is why the official inflation gauges understate the memory chip price increase. The figure is derived from TrendForce spot readings for one small legacy chip, so it is an upstream pressure gauge rather than the price of a memory kit.
How much does DRAM cost per GB right now?
It depends entirely on which market you are buying in, and that gap is the whole story. A DDR4 kit at retail is about $7.77 per GB and a DDR5 kit about $17.50. HBM3E on an AI supply contract is roughly $12.00 to $12.80. A mainstream DDR4 1Gx8 chip on the open spot market is $46.32, because that particular small legacy part is in an end-of-life squeeze and is the least representative price in the market. Anyone quoting a single number for the cost of a gigabyte of memory has picked one of these four and dropped the label.
Why do not government inflation numbers show the memory price spike?
Two reasons. First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics quality-adjusts hardware prices (hedonic adjustment): if a chip gets faster or denser, part of a price rise is counted as paying for more product, not inflation, so the index understates raw price moves. Second, the published indices track producer and consumer prices that lean on contract deals, while the dramatic moves are happening in the spot market. The semiconductor producer price index was about 10% lower in Aug 2026 than in January 2024, and it has now fallen four months running. The computers consumer index has gone the other way: rebased to the same November 2025 base as the chart on this page, producer prices sit at 96 and consumer prices at 111, so the pass-through is finally showing up on the consumer side even while the producer side falls.
Where does this memory price data come from?
The spot and index figures are from free primary sources: the semiconductor producer price index and the computers consumer price index come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the spot figures come from official TrendForce Memory Spot Price Update releases and DRAMeXchange Daily Express snapshots. The retail figures are aggregated from two independent retail price trackers and are labeled as such, because no free primary retail feed exists. HBM figures are trade-press reports of contract prices, attributed to the outlet that published them. The memory-maker equity signal is the Roundhill Memory ETF (ticker DRAM).

Sources

Every figure on this page and its spokes, with per-row source attribution and verification dates, is available as one machine-readable file: memory-prices.json.

Latest analysis

← Back to Capital & Compute