RAM prices and how they affect Dedicated Servers
Our Dedicated Servers rely on RAM, and that RAM is getting harder to come by.
If you've read any tech news in the last few months you’ll almost certainly have seen commotion about RAM shortages. This is one of those occasions where the uproar is warranted.
Shortages are only getting worse
Back in October last year, OpenAI made deals with the biggest RAM suppliers to secure 40% of the world’s total RAM supply for the coming years. That’s not 40% of high-bandwidth commercial grade RAM—that’s 40% of the global memory production capacity. Since then, RAM has only got harder to come by and will likely only get more prohibitively expensive and inaccessible to consumers.
OpenAI aims to build huge AI data centres across the globe, each packed with a huge amount of servers, all requiring state of the art GPUs, cooling equipment, power supplies, and—of course—RAM.
How bad are the price increases?
It’s pretty bleak. According to PC Part Picker, since early October 2025 the average retail price of both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM (the two latest generations and most widely adopted modern variants of RAM) has increased by nearly 150%. High capacity DDR5 prices were the most affected, quadrupling in price in the last quarter of the year. And that’s just calculating from October. Memory prices were already steadily climbing since June, before OpenAI created a RAMpocalypse.
What the shortages mean for you - and us
AI data centres like the ones OpenAI are building are jam-packed with high-bandwidth RAM. For manufacturers like Samsung and SK Hynix, the profitability and demand of high-bandwidth RAM far exceeds the profitability of the retail market and the memory used in household devices.
Even industries that don’t at first sound tethered to RAM costs are feeling the heat. It’s almost trite to say, but everything these days uses RAM. Televisions, game consoles, phones, smart fridges, Bluetooth speakers—you name it—they all have RAM in them.
As a result, for companies smaller than OpenAI, it’s no trivial task to make large component orders. Chip manufacturers are phasing out consumer product lines and redirecting their capacity to the most lucrative enterprise contracts (aka: AI infrastructure contracts).
There’s no getting around it—our Dedicated Servers rely on RAM, and that RAM is getting harder to come by.
Hardware right now is the cheapest it’ll be for a while
Nearly every analyst firm and memory maker is warning that these shortages will cause prices to soar higher and higher in the coming months and years. Some experts suggest the shortage could last a decade. We don’t have a crystal ball to know exactly how bad it will get, but the graphs don’t lie.
That’s why our advice at the moment is that if you are in the market for a new Dedicated Server or looking to upgrade your current setup, now is the time to do so. As the adage goes, yesterday was the cheapest time to buy, and the second-best time is today. It goes against the long-time universal truth that PC components will get cheaper over time as technology progresses, which we’ve written about in recent years. These are exceptional circumstances and that means we’re looking at an uncertain future on the hardware front.
In the market for a Dedicated Server? Don't waste time
In normal times, we suggest that customers take a look at the Dedicated Server builds which we have priced up and ready to go, and then talk with us about any customisations that would fit your use case. In normal times, bespoke builds are not a problem.
But these are not normal times.
Two pieces of advice:
If you know you’re going to want a new Dedicated Server soon, lock your order in as soon as possible. Today’s prices and term discounts will almost certainly be a better deal.
For bespoke builds or any parts we need to order in, expect long lead times and possibly a bit of price shock.
Although there are new constraints on the market, we’ll do our best to accommodate any requests and to supply you with whatever hardware suits you best. The best time to start, even if it's just talking with us about your options, is now.
Photo by Andrey Matveev from Pexels.