The RAM crisis just got so bad that YouTubers are making it in their sheds and our only hope now is a consumer rebellion

Date:
Sun, 26 Apr 2026 12:30:00 +0000

Description:
Over the past week, we've suffered a whole lot more pain with RAM pricing,
one way or another and it's unlikely to get any better.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter If you were hoping for some relief from the RAM pricing crisis, April hasn't delivered on that front. Actually, there is a caveat attached here, in that there has been one more positive development of late although it has a sizable sting in the tail, as we'll see later. But before that and sorry to do this to you we must wade through the quagmire of negative news that's
been a running theme this month.

In fact, we only need to focus on the past week to see multiple developments that underline just how bad things have got with the RAM situation. Previously, we've heard about stock shortages of the Mac mini (and Mac
Studio) theorized to be down to the lack of RAM supply, and then on
Wednesday, the base model of the Mac mini completely sold out on Apple 's online store. That's the M4 model with only 16GB of RAM, whereas before, it was the versions more heavily loaded with system memory which were (understandably) in trouble. We also witnessed the launch of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro , dubbed the 'MacBook Pro for Linux users', which went down a storm thanks to many of its design decisions with a notable fly in the ointment. That was the asking price for this notebook, with wallet-worrying starting prices, particularly in some regions where there are higher, much dearer baseline configurations. Naturally, those prices have been driven up
by the rising cost of RAM and storage (along with other PC components
besides, including CPUs and GPUs). Article continues below You may like TurboQuant sadly won't fix the RAM crisis, analysts say here's why
TrendForce report sparks hope that we might be turning a corner in the RAM crisis DDR4 RAM price falls but don't get carried away with any optimism yet Also this week came the news that someone is making their own RAM in their garden shed (as reported by Tom's Hardware ). Okay, so no, they aren't producing functional sticks of memory to slot into a PC, but an intrepid YouTuber did manage to craft working memory cells from scratch, after converting "a shed in my back yard into a class 100 semiconductor cleanroom". This is actually a seriously impressive project, and I'd recommend giving the video a watch , as it's not just amazing what's achieved in this DIY effort, but it's also very educational in terms of how memory is manufactured (and
how it works). Although be warned, it does get quite techie. Surface downer (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler) Another major downer was a rumor that Microsoft 's next-gen Surface devices are likely to be, well, shall we say expensive. Or to quote the leaker in this case: " Prices are probably going
to be so bad, no one will be able to afford the things anyway ."

Yikes. And guess why? That's right, good old RAMageddon. And yes, okay, this is just a rumor, but we have already seen huge price hikes for existing Surface models , and those are very real. When they happened last week, they were taken as a sign that next-gen Surface hardware would also be a lot pricier, so that adds weight to this week's rumor. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

And on top of all this, a further blow was dealt in the form of ASRock's new HUDIMM memory . While on the face of it, this was billed as a clever innovation for producing more affordable DDR5 memory, it does so by cutting performance levels considerably. Still, that doesn't mean it's not a useful choice to have for budget builds, because it is.

However, with companies coming up with longer-term solutions like this for
the ridiculous pricing that's plaguing the memory market, this suggests the crisis really is here for the long haul (as in the rest of the decade). Which some analyst firms, and indeed memory manufacturers, have already said is the case but this kind of development underlines it.

Continued bad news about SSD price hikes rather compounds all this, as that hardware is, of course, part of the pain regarding shaky memory supply. What to read next HP admits RAM crisis means memory now consumes 35% of total cost of its PCs We are only able to supply, for our key customers in the midterm, about 50% to two-thirds of their requirements: Micron CEO forecasts
production spend increase to meet the insane demand for memory but the RAM crisis will only get worse MSI exec calls 2026 the 'most challenging year' ever due to RAM crisis Consumer refusal (Image credit: Ollyy / Shutterstock) So, that's the latest miserable mire of bad news on the crisis but what
about the glimmer of positivity I mentioned at the outset? This is the fact that we've actually seen some sizable drops in the price of DDR5 RAM , and by sizable I mean in the order of 10% to 20% (and there looks to be some relief with DDR4, as well, albeit in a much more limited way).

While that sounds great on the face of it, hold your horses, because the
price of RAM has shot up by a ridiculous amount to the tune of 300% or more (and it's far worse than that for some DDR4 modules going by recent reports). So those kind of 10% or 20% reductions aren't all that significant against this backdrop.

Furthermore, this price drop isn't a result of improved supply for RAM, but
as the analyst company that highlighted the DDR5 drop pointed out, it's a softening of consumer demand. In other words, prices have got so silly that consumers are just sighing, giving up and refusing to buy, in the hope that prices will come down. And, of course, that's part of the supply and demand equation which will indeed cause prices to drop.

In short, it's not a positive thing in terms of better supply and stock, but
a negative factor attacking prices and forcing them down, regardless of inventory levels of RAM in warehouses and on shelves.

Really, it's just another depressing facet of the reality of the RAM crisis. It also begs the question: is this ebbing demand due to the sky-high cost of memory our best, or indeed only, hope of price tags coming down?

From where I'm sat that seems to be the case. And what's more, this slump in prices due to buyer refusal is likely to have a limited impact, when all the fundamental issues that caused the RAM crisis in the first place remain in full force. Extra manufacturing capacity at memory makers is not going to meaningfully spin up to a greater level for a long time yet that won't even start until 2028 and AI demand for RAM looks as relentless as ever.

This week, we also heard again that AI's insatiable hunger for memory isn't going to be solved by Google 's TurboQuant tech, clever though it is. The CFO of memory maker SK Hynix ( via Wccftech ) recently said: "Although memory-efficiency technologies may appear to reduce memory usage per individual device, in reality they are evolving in a direction that maximizes the amount of context that can be processed per unit of memory."

This is something I wrote about recently , and to sum up, what it means is that 'memory-efficiency tech' like TurboQuant will be used to drive better performance for AI, rather than saving memory (while delivering the same performance) which will lead to more AI usage, and increased demand for RAM. So, there's no escape route there.

The optimism that is around, then and it's very thin on the ground anyway doesn't have much in the way of substance or foundations.

For now, it's true enough that as consumers, we can do our part in
suppressing demand by refusing to buy where that's feasible and hope to see this make a continued impact on the currently lofty prices of RAM.

It's a slim and wispy hope, but it's about all we seem to have. Save for keeping our fingers crossed that somehow the AI bubble might burst, but never mind wispy, that feels like an extra-planar possibility, and not one that there's any chance of manifesting in this particular reality. The best
laptops for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

Read our full guide to the best laptops 1. Best overall: Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M4 2. Best budget: Asus Chromebook CM14 3. Best Windows 11 laptop Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch 4. Best gaming: Razer Blade 16 5. Best for pros MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro) Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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