Memory Companies Have Destroyed the Consumer Market | GamersNexus Skip to main content Main navigation Home Features Game Tests Store Cases Coolers CPUs GPUs Errors User account menu Patreon logo Currently Reading: Memory Companies Have Destroyed the Consumer Market Jump To Section Table of Contents News Features Memory Companies Have Destroyed the Consumer Market September 29, 2026 Last Updated: 2026-09-29 The cyclical nature of memory manufacturing may finally be broken -- and not in a good way for consumers The Highlights The memory manufacturers have all moved toward long-term agreements with longer terms and capacity than previously Amazon has publicly stated that more users than ever will consider its cloud services due to the rising costs of on-location hardware Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix have diverted a flood of memory away from consumers Table of Contents AutoTOC Grab a GN15 Large Anti-Static Modmat to celebrate our 15th Anniversary and for a high-quality PC building work surface. The Modmat features useful PC building diagrams and is anti-static conductive. Purchases directly fund our work! (or consider a direct donation or a Patreon contribution !) Intro The DRAM and NAND flash manufacturers at fault for the ongoing RAM, SSD, and GPU price increases have finally figured out how to suppress the market’s previously cyclical pricing nature, and it’s by committing to larger, longer long-term agreements with fewer customers. This article deep dives into what these companies are saying out loud -- like Amazon’s interest in pushing more customers into cloud services from on-premises -- and also SSD and RAM pricing. Editor's note: This was originally published on September 21, 2026 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication. Credits Host, Writing Steve Burke Video Editing Vitalii Makhnovets Tim Phetdara Writing Tannen Williams Writing, Web Editing Jimmy Thang Since last September, the average price of SSDs and RAM have continued to climb: prices have increased by 137% for 2 TB NVMe SSDs on average, 183% for 2 TB SATA SSDs, 363% for 32GB DDR5 kits, and 294% for 32GB DDR4 kits, with AVG prices collected from the samples of product listings specified below the chart. In some situations, it’s worse: DDR5-6000 64GB kits have climbed from $240 to $1,300-$1,400 on average, an increase of around 483%. If you had dreams of a home server or a high-end engineering design or editing machine with 128GB of memory, that’s gone up even more. We bought 128 GB of DDR5-6400 GSkill ECC Registered memory in 2024 for $1,060 to use in an editing machine. Today, that RAM isn’t even available . If you bought similar RAM, you could get scalped by a third-party seller for some NEMIX 128GB of a similar spec for $6,800, or maybe you’d prefer 512GB -- something that used to cost $4,200 -- for $23,811. And 99 cents, because fuck you. In 2024, we also bought a 4 TB Samsung 990 Pro for $390. Today, that same drive is $1,100 , or a 254% increase. This is the K-shaped economy. From a single stick of 16 GB to a few sticks totaling 128 GB, everyone is getting ripped-off. People who want to play games for a hobby are robbed and people who want to start a business that needs a high-end computer might find it cheaper to rent a system or use cloud computing, which sort of seems like the endgame. This massive diversion to data centers isn’t just affecting RAM and SSD prices for PC enthusiasts – it’s affecting the prices of all consumer electronics for literally everybody . According to the IDC: “ Worldwide smartphone shipments will fall 16.7% in 2026, [...] The average selling price of a smartphone will reach $581 in 2026, up 27.6% in a single year .” After Apple increased prices on its MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Studio, iPad, iPad Air, iPad Pro, iPad Mini, HomePod, HomePod Mini, Apple TV Box, and Vision Pro headset, Apple’s Tim Apple noted in his final earnings call as CEO , “We reluctantly raised prices I would say and we did it because we’re in what I would characterize as a 100-year flood on the memory pricing with exponential increases in memory prices.” XBOX recently announced its latest round of price increases , stating, “Effective August 1, 2026, we will be updating prices worldwide. The price of XBOX consoles will increase by US$100 for 512 GB models and US$150 for 1 TB models. We will also be sunsetting our 2 TB model.” The company added, “Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027.” Amazon raised prices on its Echo Dot, Echo Show 11, Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, Fire TV Stick HD, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, eero 7, and eero Pro 7. Nintendo inflated its Switch 2 MSRP , and Sony’s already increased its PS5 prices twice within the last year. TechInsights CSO, reported via the New York Times, added , “Yes, the prices of your iPhone are going up. But it’s also possible the prices of your M.R.I. machines may go up, or worse than that, that M.R.I. machine may not get made.” Meanwhile, Chinese newcomers CXMT and YMTC have continued their rapid expansions, with YMTC breaking into the global top 3 NAND manufacturers by shipments , surpassing Kioxia, Micron, and SanDisk, and CXMT now holding 10% of the global DRAM market share by revenue , up 6 percentage points YoY, as reported by Counterpoint Research. And yet being challenged by the United States Government for entrance, despite selling consumer-grade memory. To us, the most concerning part of this is that the memory suppliers are trying to finally bust the cyclical nature of memory pricing, which would mean they want to eliminate the future low point for prices, especially for consumers. Overview Long-Term Agreements (LTAs) are made between memory manufacturers and large clients, often unnamed. These clients almost certainly include NVIDIA. Shortages caused by AI demand could keep supply just