Why Is RAM So Expensive Right Now?

The “AI Tax” and a Manufactured Scarcity (Early 2026) At Dream PC, we understand the frustration many of you are feeling when looking at current RAM prices. Building a high-performance PC has always been about balancing power and budget, but memory costs have surged dramatically, making that balance harder to achieve. So, what’s really going on? The short answer is: a perfect storm of unprecedented AI demand, strategic manufacturing shifts, and a lingering desire by chipmakers to avoid the “too cheap” era of just a few years ago. For those who want to dive deep into the mind-boggling complexity of chip manufacturing, we highly recommend this incredible video by Veritasium: World’s Most Important Machine (ASML). It will give you a profound appreciation for why these tiny components are so costly to produce.

From “Too Cheap” to Sky-High: A Rapid Reversal Just a few years ago, in late 2022 and early 2023, the memory market was in crisis. Manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron were struggling to make a profit on consumer RAM. Why? They had a massive oversupply—in some cases, enough inventory to last almost a year. RAM was, quite literally, “too cheap.” To combat this, these major players