- High-capacity DDR5 prices quadrupled within weeks during the quarter of 2025
- Both DDR5-5600 and DDR5-6000 moved in lockstep despite different specifications
- Early 2026 data indicate that sharp weekly increases have largely paused
It has become increasingly difficult to ignore the rising cost of DRAM memory in recent months, particularly for higher-capacity DDR5 kits.
If recent reports are anything to go by, the situation is unlikely to ease anytime soon, but instead appears to be a stepping stone toward even higher costs.
Estimates for early 2026 indicate that contract prices could rise sharply compared with late 2025 levels, and TrendForce now forecasts DRAM prices will rise by about 55-60% in Q1 2026.
High prices may be responsible for stability
A recent average market price trend by PCPartPicker (PPP) reveals the price situation may be easing, especially for high-end models.
The trend shows that for much of the past 18 months, prices for high-capacity DDR5 memory kits stayed within a relatively tight range.
Models such as DDR5-5600 and DDR5-6000 in 2x32GB configurations spent most of that period clustered just above the $200 level.
However, this extended stability ended abruptly during the final quarter of 2025, when pricing behavior changed within a short span of weeks.
Between October and December 2025, average prices for DDR5-5600 2x32GB rose from slightly above $200 to around $800.
Over the same period, DDR5-6000 2x32GB increased even further, reaching roughly $900 on average.
The scale of the increase makes it unlikely that routine cost adjustments or incremental improvements drove it.
Although DDR5-6000 kits typically carried slightly higher prices than DDR5-5600, the difference remained inconsistent for much of the observed period.
At some point, both configurations sold at nearly identical levels, indicating that rated speed alone did not reliably influence pricing.
Once prices began rising, both models moved in the same direction and within the same timeframe, impliying the price of high-capacity memory continued to increase week after week, irrespective of individual rating.
However, since the beginning of 2026, the pace of weekly price increases has slowed noticeably, as early data show little evidence of continued sharp rises for these high-end kits, suggesting that prices have leveled off for now.
This stabilization, however, has occurred at levels far above those seen earlier. An average price near $900 for 64GB is a lot of money after all.
Therefore, the current price stabilization likely says less about better market conditions and more about limited willingness to buy at current prices.
After all, demand drives supply, and if there is no increase in demand, prices remain stable or even drop – but whether this plateaued pricing will continue or DDR5 memory prices will fall remains to be seen.
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