If you’ve been looking to buy a new PC, laptop, or components, you’re probably asking when will the AI boom-cdrive pricing crisis finally end? Unfortunately, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel, and worse still, estimates of when that light might appear keep getting pushed further and further back. Memory manufacturers currently believe prices will remain at these extreme levels for at least another two years. Read more “SSD and memory price to remain high at least until 2029?”
It has been quite a while since we learned details about the upcoming LPDDR6 and DDR6 technology—new generations of random access memory which are expected to be a significant shift, likely moving to “non‑binary” channel widths to increase RAM bandwidth. Originally, it seemed these memory types might arrive relatively soon. But at least for DDR6, it now appears we’ll be waiting considerably longer, according to current reports. Read more “DDR6 memory is still far away: 2028–2029 at the earliest, or later”
The launch of AMD’s next‑generation desktop processors (Zen 6 architecture) is apparently still many months away. It is therefore surprising that a new feature is coming to AM5 motherboards at the current time: AMD has introduced EXPO 1.2, a new generation of DDR5 memory overclocking profiles for the AM5 platform. EXPO 1.2 adds several previously missing capabilities, especially initial support for higher‑speed CUDIMM modules. Read more “EXPO 1.2 brings support for CUDIMM memory to the AMD platform”
The second quarter has begun, and it has nasty things in store—another round of price increases for RAM and SSDs. In February we discussed a TrendForce forecast, noting that the price surge so far was likely the biggest jump in history. That itself was based just on the increases in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. But as if those weren’t enough, another drastic price spike is coming now between April and June, making the situation even worse. Read more “Further price hikes of memory and SSDs, up to 75% in spring”
When your web browser or a game crashes, you are likely to consider it a bug in that software. In reality, however, you may have faulty or unstable system memory without even knowing it. Unlike HDDs or SSDs, data in RAM is not protected against corruption. And it appears that unstable memory can silently cause computer trouble far more often than we think, potentially even putting your valuable data at risk. Read more “RAM errors causing PC crashes are far more common than assumed”
Once again, we return to a topic that is probably as popular in the PC world as artificial intelligence (and is close buddies with it): memory prices. TrendForce has released their outlook of how DRAM prices—that is, system memory and graphics memory—are expected to develop in Q1 2026. Unfortunately, it appears that the explosive price surge is not staying, but the three months we are now entering could be the worst yet. Read more “Memory prices to double in Q1 2026 compared to year-end”
Hardware market is in a dire situation—prices of DRAM have risen severalfold due to insufficient supply, a situation driven by the artificial intelligence craze and the plans of various involved companies to build massive AI server parks costing hundreds of billions. If you are wondering how long this state of affairs may last, Micron, as one of the three largest memory manufacturers, has bad news for you. Read more “Memory price hikes until 2027? Micron says shortage will persist”
The next casualty of the massive price hikes and memory shortages fuelled by the AI bubble is, ironically, an actual memory vendor. More precisely, a business that used to support them, but which now isn’t lucrative enough compared to the booming AI datacenter chip business. In a way, it’s symbolic of how the PC industry’s pursuit of AI profits is currently squeezing out “ordinary” everyday customers—both consumers and professionals. Read more “AI pays better: Micron kills Crucial, exits consumer memory & SSDs”
Not long ago, we reported bad news about NAND Flash prices. Western Digital announced across-the-board increases for HDDs, and its SanDisk division raised prices for NAND and SSDs built from them. It now looks like that was just the beginning—broad price hikes across the memory market are ahead. Samsung, one of the largest producers, has also announced price increases. And it’s not just NAND and SSDs—things may get worse with DRAM. Read more “Almost like price fixing, memory manufacturers hike prices in sync”
Last month, the JEDEC consortium developing memory standards unveiled a new generation of mobile RAM: LPDDR6. It introduces sweeping changes, particularly in channel width and ECC option, offering significant gains in both performance and reliability. By contrast, news about the next desktop RAM standard, DDR6, has been relatively scarce—until now. We’re starting to see new details emerge, including a projected release timeline. Read more “DDR6: New generation of PC memory is coming in 2027”
As recently reported, major traditional memory manufacturers are ending DDR4 production, leaving only new Chinese firms still in the game. The fears that DDR4 prices could rise as a result—and ironically get more expensive than the newer DDR5 technology are unfortunately coming true. Pricing forecasts now indicate a dramatic spike in DDR4 pricing. And the rise in RAM prices is happening across the board, to a lesser degree. Read more “Memory prices are going up as DDR4 and GDDR6 see sharp increases”
New X870E motherboards for AMD processors and Z890 boards for the new Intel Core Ultra 200S processors are now coming to the market. There will be one new feature on Asus boards that is supposed to improve the performance of RAM. It’s a new DIMM slot design that may not look any different on the outside, but has improvements that should allow DDR5 to overclock to higher clock speeds with better signal quality for more stable operation. Read more “Asus NitroPath: Improved DIMM slots boost RAM speed by 400 MHz”
Recently, we reported that the Intel LGA 1851 platform with Core Ultra 200 (“Arrow Lake”) processors will premiere certain memory innovation – CUDIMM modules that have an integrated clock driver (CKD) that enables operation at (hopefully) higher clock speeds. It was unclear for a while whether this would end up being an Intel exclusive feature, but now it looks like CUDIMMs will be usable on AM5 boards with Ryzen processors as well. Read more “CUDIMM will work on AM5, MSI says, Ryzen 9000 or 8000 needed”
While we focused on the new processor architectures most, Computex 2024 featured all sorts of things. One of these is worth revisiting. We’ve written several times recently about the hypothetical possibility of desktop motherboards switching to CAMM2 memory modules instead of the DIMMs that have been standard for almost thirty years. It seems that this is much closer to reality than it seemed, CAMM2 is indeed coming to desktop. Read more “CAMM2 memory modules for desktop are closer than it seemed”
Some time ago, we reported that CAMM2 (or LPCAMM2) compression memory modules could be extended from laptops to desktops in the future, where they could improve performance or enable the use of LPDDR-type memory. Now there is even talk that may move desktop processors from using DDR6 to LPDDR6 memory. MSI has shown what this could look like, and has already shown the first prototype motherboard for CAMM2 memory. Read more “MSI’s first motherboard using new CAMM2 memory”
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