Memory Price Crisis Has Foiled My Penny Pinching Patience And Made...

Yes, I'm calling it the memory price crisis now, and you can't stop me.

This week: I've been trying out different lightweight mice, trying to decide whether I can tell the difference between 41 g and 36 g under my fingertips.

The memory price crisis has come at my least favourite time: a time when it inconveniences me. You can have your early 2025 GPU shortage, that's fine. That didn't affect me, but this does, therefore it's bad. That's a valid argument, trust me, I did logic 101.

You see, I considered upgrading my entire build a few months ago, but I put it off because the start of a new GPU generation isn't my favourite time to upgrade. So I came up with my cunning plan: I would wait until next year when hopefully RTX 50-series Super cards launch, and then I'd pounce. And I'd have the benefit of cheaper prices across the board by then, too.

I can hear you snickering from here. 'Cheaper prices', I know. I've been foiled by the tumultuous tides of today's AI-first tech industry and resultant memory shortage.

My current build, if you're wondering, consists of an RTX 3060 Ti, Core i5 12600KF, and 32 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM. And that's 3200 MT/s RAM that really cannot hit those speeds, at least not paired with my Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 motherboard. 2,600 MT/s seems to be as high as it goes.

I did debate upgrading the CPU and RAM earlier in the year and waiting to upgrade the GPU, but apart from the fact that upgrading everything all at once just feels better, I also thought I was being smart by waiting for prices to drop even lower. DDR5 had been dropping in price for a while, and SSDs, too. And now both are increasing in price thanks to high demand for AI.

I'd have liked to upgrade to a 32 GB DDR5-6000 kit or better, preferably with CAS latency of CL32 or CL30, and on that front prices are mostly around £175–200 right now. I've managed to spot a Biwin 6,400 MT/s CL32 kit for £150 at Amazon, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Compare that to a 32 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 CL32 kit for £190 at Amazon. That was just £81 back in June, and was level at about £90 for most of the year before that.

It's no exaggeration to say that prices have literally doubled, and the scary thing is that it doesn't look like it's done yet. We've covered this a lot over the last few weeks; you can check out my recent compendium and explanation if you want to know more.

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Source: PC Gamer