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Comment by corimaith | Hacker News Reader

I find the panic over RAM prices to be overestimated. 32GB DDR5 RAM is around $500 which is comparable to to the 9800x3D. Sure it sucks that it increases by around 4x, but when you factor in the overall price of a top end PC at around 1000-2000, especially for the lion's sum of the GPU, the increase is marginal.

This only effects a very narrow slice of highly budget conscious consumers trying to build high end PCs at razor thin margins.

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$500 for 32GB is about $15/GB which is a high we haven't seen since the mid-2000s. This is a big deal, it turns RAM and to some extent storage (especially fast storage) into a massive economic bottleneck.

> since the mid-2000s.

Did you adjust for inflation ?

No, I didn't adjust for the huge inflation in average RAM requirements since the mid-2000s.

Not the point - my point utterly of arithmetical nature - dollar has substantial inflation, and any comparison more that 5 years apart, let alone 20 warrants adjusting of prices, as error is substantial, 2x in the case of 2000s

You demand specific data points but respond with vague handwaving and general statements about the importance of calculating inflation in this discussion as if it represents more than a small fraction of the overall increase in ram cost

> more than a small fraction of the overall increase in ram cost

There is nothing vague about the question if prices were scaled or not (and in this pretty much unvague coefficient of ~2x between usd in 2000 and 2026), otherwise there is point in comparing these numbers, as there is no point in comparing inches and cm's without declaring beforehand which number is which.

You are perfectly capable of looking at the rate of inflation since the mid 2000s and seeing that it only tells a small portion of the story.

You cannot possibly look at the price of ram now compared to six months ago and be so fixated on including inflation. Obviously inflation occurred and obviously after 20 years it has an impact on price. But we are all on HN and all know what inflation is, so forcing people to drill down on its contribution in order to advance the conversation when it clearly only accounts for a small portion and we all know it’s a factor is absolutely ridiculous. You know this, we know this, and yet here we are still talking about it. I may as well explain what ram is if we want to get this elementary about things.

True or false: ram has become substantially more expensive in the last 6mo in a way that cannot be meaningfully explained by inflation.

There is a very clear, very obvious answer here. Inflation or not.

> You are perfectly capable of looking at the rate of inflation since the mid 2000s and seeing that it only tells a small portion of the story.

Have no idea why you are keeping arguing about something which was not my point to begin with.

Inflation since the 2000s cannot possibly make up the difference in price we’ve seen in just the last 6 months.

That was not my point entirely; my point that citing prices from 2000s and comparing with modern ones |(with indexing about 2x times), regardless of underling reason is either a demonstration of lazyness or innumeracy, or even worse - an attempt to manipulate.

It’s not laziness, innumeracy, or manipulation when it can be taken at face value that the cost increase vastly outstrips anything that could be attributed to inflation. You don’t even need to look it up to know that.

> when it can be taken at face value that the cost increase vastly outstrips anything that could be attributed to inflation

But that was not my point _whatsoever_. What I said is - every time you bring the explicit numbers (like in GP "$500 for 32GB is about $15/GB which is a high we haven't seen since the mid-2000s") you _absolutely_ have to adjust for inflation to have a meaningful conversation. This is it.

Ram is clearly way more expensive now, yes?

Did you adjust for technological improvements that pumps out more chip per wafer compared to mid-2000s due to node-size shrink?

Adjusted for inflation, the last time prices (/GB) were this high was May 2011; the tail end of the 2009/2010 shortage. Aside from a brief glut in 2008, it wasn't really cheaper before (than it is now) though. Of course RAM is much faster these days, but also in 2011 most people had no more than 4 GB of system memory and 512 MB VRAM.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240805053759/https://jcmit.net...

https://thememoryguy.com/dram-prices-hit-historic-low/

Inflation applied manually; https://www.bls.gov/cpi/

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/983036-latest-steam-hardw...

Steam hardware survey GPU history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTdnIviZTE

$500 is 5x what it cost less than a year ago, just for context. It turns a $1600 computer build into a $2000 one. That’s a huge difference.

Edit: I don’t get your math. If we’re using a very generous definition of “top end,” even neglecting Nvidia and going AMD - which some would argue makes it not top end - you’re talking conservatively: $600 for a GPU, $500 for 32gb of ram, and $500 for a CPU. $1600 before PSU, case, SSD, fan(s), mobo…there’s no world in which you’re coming in under $2k. The SSD and board will put you over immediately.

You’re talking 3/2025 prices, not 3/2026. A compromise, mid-range computer is $1500 to build now.

Look at my comment above and see what i said about my build. I was unwilling to pay that for a moderate build that can sustain my computer use. Utilize bundles that can save you $ on RAM or chipset, CPU to skip some of the costs.

You aren't specific in your comment. Where are these bundles? What do you do with all the parts you don't need/end up swapping out? How much are you actually saving?

I went to micro center and they usually have decent priced bundles. RAM was G Skill flare 32gb sticks. Im not being specific in the previous post. because there is many ways to save depending on what your willing to trust. Best Buy open box/new, Micro center open box/new, Walmart has pretty good prices depending what your looking for. Ebay is iffy depending on the product your looking for GPU are expensive at the moment.

Microcenter is not available for the vast majority of us - they don’t ship. The nearest one to me is an almost 8hr drive and I live in a major city. I’m not spending 2 days and $200-$300 on gas/food/lodging to get there and back.

Bestbuy is selling ram and storage at the same cost as everyone else. I imagine Walmart is not much better. I’m also not sure what you do with all the bundle parts that you don’t need. Do you sell them? Where do you sell them?

What deals did you take advantage of? What did everything cost you in the end/when did you build? If you don’t feel like answering that’s fine but it’s valid to remain skeptical given all the evidence to the contrary. Perhaps you’re just really good at finding deals but you can look around this thread and see that we are all telling the same story. Building a computer has gone up $600+ for common builds over the last 4-5mo on top of the already inflated GPU prices we’ve been experiencing for years. If you put my exact build I did last April into PC part picker it is an additional $500+ to build now, and that’s with an AMD GPU to keep costs down.

It’s strange times when Mac minis are a budget-friendly computer. Building a half decent PC for less than $1500 is a serious challenge now. Things are so volatile valve still hasn’t released or even set a price for the new Steam machine.

Microcenter is useful if it's near you then your out of luck. Other stores depends on your egion and location same store gives different deals and discounts based on regional selling trends.

I'm not sure what you expecting to hear. What do i do with parts I'm not gonna use? What are you talking about? Don't get the bundle is you're not going to use what the bundle comes with, simple as that. Have you not shopped before?

Currently computer components are not cheap and it does not look like it's getting any better.

I currently have two moderately good laptop that either i sell or keep for back up.

A 5080 is 1.5K, A 5090 is even more. 1600 to 2000 is not really a large difference at the price band where you are spending that much money, especially since you would heavily comprising in other components if you want to keep that budget, in which that case you don't need 32gb RAM.

That is to say, if you want a system that keeps up with 32 GB Ram, you'd be already willing to spend alot what with options for noctua fans, water cooling, higher end MOBOs, premium cases, OLEDs etc. If you can't afford that then you won't be buying expensive DDRD5 RAM either.

A 9060 is like $450, an XT is like $550. Depending on what you’re using that computer for it could be more than enough firepower. There are tons of people not paying the Nvidia tax because they have a plenty viable build with AMD.

I built my current PC (9800x3D, 9060, 32gb DDR6) last April for about $1800. It would cost almost $3000 now between storage and ram increases. The economics have completely shifted. Everything is more expensive except basically the PSU and case

9060 is mid-tier, buying a 9800X3D and DDR6 RAM is overkill because the GPU won't keep up with their performance.

AMD has no equivalent to NVidia in the high end, it isn't tax as it is functional monopoly

We aren’t debating AMD vs. Nvidia and I shouldn’t have gotten distracted with it tbh. I am talking about what it takes to build a computer now.

Ram and storage have ballooned PC costs. That’s the issue. Whether you are buying an AMD GPU or an Nvidia GPU, it is still substantially increasing build costs. Nobody is spending $1500 on an Nvidia GPU and then going “well nothing else matters now.” The ram and storage has gone from $200-$300 to $800-$1000. That’s still a huge portion of the budget. They’ve gone from near-line item status to 1/3rd (or more) of the cost. Affordable builds have become incredibly difficult to achieve

Also just randomly realized I kept saying 9060 when I meant 9070.

I disagree with you. The issue does not only affect a “very narrow slice” of consumers. https://www.techspot.com/news/111472-hp-warns-ram-now-makes-... A major brand is now suggesting that this is a “new normal” and one solution is to just offer systems with less ram. This is an issue when lots of modern software seems to expect an unending supply.

That is an insane amount of money for just 32GB of RAM! That's what we were paying back when it was hard to use more than 32-64GB in a desktop setting. These days with all the electron and node bloatware, containers everywhere and AI - 32GB doesn't get you far.

> 32GB DDR5 RAM is around $500 which is comparable to to the 9800x3D.

Apples to oranges. Why are you comparing RAM prices to CPU prices? It's different hardware.

$500 for 32 GB is insane. Just 18 months ago, I bought 128 GB of DDR5 for only $480.

>"overall price of a top end PC at around 1000-2000"

All 4 of my "top end PCs" have 128GB RAM. Me server (I self host everything is 512GB). Lucky for me all were bought before that insanity.

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