The memory price crisis has foiled my penny pinching patience and made me regret not upgrading my gaming PC sooner

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.

To be clear, it's not a complete catastrophe for myself and others who have been putting off upgrading for a while, because motherboard and CPU prices are still lower than they were. I was considering the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, for instance, and that was about £420 at the start of the year and is currently on sale for £360 at Amazon. And I'd have probably gone for the best budget AM5 motherboard, the Asus TUF Gaming B650 Plus WiFi. That's currently £155 at Amazon when it used to be about £170.

So, really, the approximate £80–90 saving on those two just about cancels out the doubled memory price… for now. And that's the thing, really, isn't it? How long should one wait to pull the trigger? With the rate at which DDR5 memory is rising, it certainly seems like it'll outpace other falling prices.

And if you look at the price history chart for the B650 Plus WiFi, you'll notice that's been creeping back up, too. Nothing's guaranteed.

RAM shouldn't be considered in isolation, either, when we think about this memory price crisis. It's not a RAM shortage, but a DRAM shortage. DRAM is the actual memory that gets slapped on those DIMMs, but it's also what gets slapped on other components like GPUs. And even if there isn't a high demand for GDDR memory, higher demand for DDR memory will likely mean memory companies divert production away from graphics memory.

That's why there's a recent rumour that RTX 50-series Super cards won't even see the light of day. Nvidia almost certainly won't let higher prices for GDDR7 memory stop them, so this rumour doesn't seem very likely to bear out. But what does seem likely, as our Nick explains, is that RTX 50-series Super cards will be more expensive than originally intended.

Which means I'll have to fork over extra for my RTX Super card, too. At this rate I think I'll wait until the RTX 60-series. Maybe you'll catch me in a few years, still rocking the RTX 3060 Ti, just like those legends still rocking a GTX 980 today.

Best RAM for gaming 2025

1. Best DDR5 overall:
G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB DDR5-7200

2. Best budget DDR5:
Teamgroup T-Force Vulcan DDR5-5200

3. Best high-capacity DDR5:
G.Skill Trident Z5 64 GB DDR5-6400 CL32

4. Best DDR4 overall:
TEAM XTREEM 16 GB DDR4-3600

5. Best budget DDR4:
G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB DDR4-3600

6. Best high-capacity DDR4:
Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB DDR4-3200

👉Check out our full RAM for gaming guide👈