Prices Have Increased, And They Ain’t Slowing Down
Remember the days when the flagship graphics card was maybe $999? Pepperidge Farm something something.
As most of us know, Big Tech’s obsession with so-called ‘artificial intelligence” or machine learning technology has resulted in a pretty severe spike in prices for some electronics, especially those related to gaming. It’s a sad reality that much of the hardware required for machine learning is the same on a basic level as that required for gaming, and with many large companies around the world currently willing to spend big on large silicon processors for AI data centres, the prices for such things have severely spiked – after all, why would the manufacturers of the various parts sell for less than they could get away with? And so we’ve seen huge jumps in GPU pricing (though much of that comes from Nvidia’s recent dominance in ray tracing and machine learning acceleration features, which AMD will hopefully match in 2027), as well as the previously unheard-of scenario of consoles increasing in price over time. Remember when the PS4 only took a few years for its price to get cut in half? Nowadays, the smartest time to buy a console is launch day – though you might occasionally get lucky, with a couple of outlets currently selling the 5-6-month-old Nintendo Switch 2 for $50-70 off RRP.
The DRAM Apocalypse
The AI boom has not stopped growing, and in the last couple of months has struck one of the most important parts of any piece of gaming electronics – DRAM. Unsurprisingly, AI data centres love RAM, and so the companies using them they want as much of it in both quantity and bandwidth as they can get, for whatever money they can pay. As can be seen in the tweet shown above, the price for direct consumer purchases of DRAM have more than tripled on average in only two months, at least for this particular configuration (two 32GB sticks of Crucial’s Pro CL40 DDR5-6000). DDR4 is cheaper, but still pricier than it has been in a while.
So We’re All Screwed?
Pretty much, though with a caveat. If you need to buy RAM directly right now, then you’ll unfortunately have to pay up. However, if you’re looking for a product that includes RAM – such as a console or graphics card with included GDDR6 or 7, or a full pre-built PC with parts already purchased and assembled by the manufacturer – then you still have a small window of time to jump on it at a vaguely reasonable price. The key with these products is that the DRAM used in them is not being directly purchased from the memory manufacturer by the consumer at retail – that purchase was already made in bulk by the console/graphics card/pre-built PC company months ago, prior to this industry-wide price jump. This results in what you might call “lag time” or “a grace period”, made even more significant by the current Black Friday sales. The PS5, for example, can at time of writing be had for $200 under its $829 retail price – imagine missing that sale, only for it to spike to $999 when Sony has to start paying triple for the 16GB of GDDR6 within the machine. This grace period may vary from company to company, though. If you take self-styled leaker Moore’s Law Is Dead seriously, then this recent video of his talks up the PS5’s still-sane price as the result of Sony proactively stocking up on a couple of months’ worth of GDDR6 modules, while claiming that Microsoft has failed to do the same and expects new price hikes to the Xbox Series consoles to arrive in short order. TechPowerUp has also just reported that AMD’s graphics card lineup will see a jump in price of about 10% within the next few months.
A Grim Future
So, at least there’s an opportunity to upgrade right now and potentially avoid the worst of the fast-approaching price hikes. I myself just dropped $1199 on a new RTX 5070 Ti, hoping that 6 months from now I’ll be able to say “only $1199” without anyone laughing at me. But that’s not exactly helpful for anyone without the immediate disposable income, or – crucially – those looking forward to products that don’t arrive until next year. Valve’s recent confirmation of the Steam machine pre-built PC and Steam Frame standalone VR headset for early 2026 should be cause for celebration, but now the lack of announced prices has an air of foreboding. I would like to hope that they locked their price deals in more than two months ago, but I’m expecting these devices to come in surprisingly expensive. Same with the eventual new GPU architectures from the major graphics card companies, as well as the PlayStation 6 in 2027 or 2028. The past few years have been rough for gaming hardware, and I think our beloved hobby is only going to get more expensive as money continues to be funnelled to the top of Big Tech companies. Go out and get what you can, now, and prepare to use it for years to come.
