In early September, we quoted a design workstation. The customer pulled out a configuration sheet from last November and asked why the same 32GB DDR5 kit had gone from about RMB 800 to RMB 3,400. It is not a pricing trick. It is the sharpest memory shortage we have seen in more than a decade of wholesale, and prices are rising at every link in the chain.
The numbers make the case better than any sales pitch.
The numbers: five data points
| Metric | Latest reading | Source / basis |
|---|---|---|
| DDR4 8Gb (1Gx8) average die price | About US$21 (US$2.90 at the 2016 low; roughly 6x in a decade) | Spot-market average |
| 32GB DDR5 kit, retail | RMB 800 in 2025 → RMB 3,300–3,500 in September 2026 | Guangzhou street price |
| DRAM contract price, quarter on quarter | Q1 2026: +93–98%; Q2 2026: +58–63% | TrendForce |
| NAND contract price, quarter on quarter | Q2 2026: +70–75% | TrendForce |
| Hard-drive average price | +46% year on year vs September 2025 | Channel average |
A 93–98% quarterly jump in DRAM contract prices is not a normal cycle. In ordinary times, quarterly moves stay within ±5%; a 10% move is already a big quarter. A near-doubling in three months is the kind of move not seen since 2008.
Why it happened: HBM took the capacity
This is not a demand spike. It is a structural transfer of production capacity:
- HBM is siphoning wafers. Every AI accelerator needs six to eight HBM stacks. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron have put most of their new capacity — industry estimates put it around 70% — into HBM, because a wafer of HBM earns several times what a wafer of DDR5 earns. The manufacturers are making a rational choice.
- HBM consumes more wafer area per bit. An HBM stack is 8–12 DRAM dies plus through-silicon vias. Producing the same capacity in HBM takes two to three times the wafer area of ordinary DRAM. Moving to HBM does not just take capacity away; it takes it away at two to three times the rate.
- Conventional DRAM was cut. In the second half of 2025, the three major manufacturers began reducing DDR4 and mainstream DDR5 output, with DDR4 on an accelerated exit. Supply shrank just as AI-server demand took off.
- Downstream stocking amplified the move. System builders, module makers and distributors bought ahead of expected increases, draining the spot market and creating a feedback loop: the more prices rose, the more buyers stocked.
On the domestic side, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is now the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer and completed a STAR Market listing in 2026. Its expansion is real, but a new fab takes 18–24 months to come online, so it cannot change the global balance in the near term.
How long will it last?
| Institution | View |
|---|---|
| UBS | Tight supply and demand through 2027–2028 |
| CITIC Securities | HBM crowding is hard to resolve in the medium term; conventional memory stays at high levels |
| Guotai Haitong | This cycle is longer than previous ones; no clear inflection before 2027 |
| TrendForce | Q3 2026 gains narrow, but the direction is still upward |
My view, from the wholesale counter: prices will stop surging, but they are unlikely to return to 2025 levels. The three major manufacturers have already voted with their capital expenditure, and that money is going into HBM. Conventional DRAM capacity will not come back quickly. When new fabs start producing in 2027–2028, AI demand may absorb the additional output again. The likely path is not a crash but a shift from a surge to high-level volatility.
If you are building a PC: four rules
- Buy now if you need it. If you are building in the next three months, buy the memory with the rest of the machine. Waiting will probably cost more, and popular kits such as 32GB DDR5-6000 are frequently out of stock.
- Buy the right size, not the maximum. 16GB is enough for office work; 32GB is the sweet spot for gaming in 2026; 64GB is for design, video editing and virtualization. Put the savings into an SSD or a better GPU, where the money buys more everyday performance.
- Upgrading an old machine is now a bad deal. DDR4 is rising faster than DDR5 because capacity is exiting. Adding 16GB of DDR4 to an eight-year-old PC can cost RMB 700–900 — money better spent on a platform change. If the machine already has 16GB, leave it alone.
- Refurbished memory is a calculated risk. Pulled DDR4 modules sell for 50–60% of new. For an office machine, that can work if you run MemTest86 for at least two full passes and get a three-month warranty. For enterprise bulk purchases, the failure rate and the lack of original warranty cost more than the saving.
If you buy for a company: three moves
- Budget at today's prices and lock them. A 2026 IT budget built on 2025 memory prices will be badly undersized. Ask for a 30–60 day price lock in the contract, or budget at the upper bound. We issue 30–60-day price-lock quotations for enterprise customers.
- Leave the slots, not the sticks. Choose a four-slot motherboard and populate two slots now. Adding two more later is cheaper than replacing the whole kit, and it avoids buying at the top of the market.
- Re-rank server expansion. When memory is this expensive, some workloads can trade memory capacity for more SSD capacity, using memory tiering to stretch what is left. AMD's acquisition of MEXT, which makes NAND appear as DRAM to applications, points in that direction. Databases and virtualization hosts still need the memory; edge applications can often be downsized.
Guangzhou price reference, September 2026
| Specification | Retail reference | Wholesale, 10+ units | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| DDR4 8GB 3200 (desktop) | RMB 285–330 | RMB 245–280 | Capacity exiting; volatile |
| DDR4 16GB 3200 | RMB 480–560 | RMB 420–490 | — |
| DDR5 16GB 5600 (single) | RMB 520–600 | RMB 450–520 | — |
| DDR5 32GB 6000 (16GB × 2) | RMB 3,300–3,500 | RMB 2,950–3,200 | Frequent stockouts; reserve |
| DDR5 64GB 6000 (32GB × 2) | RMB 6,800–7,500 | RMB 6,100–6,800 | Mainstream for design workstations |
| Laptop DDR5 16GB 5600 | RMB 480–560 | RMB 420–490 | — |
| Server DDR5 RDIMM 32GB 4800 | RMB 1,350–1,600 | RMB 1,180–1,400 | Follows server channel |
Prices change weekly. The figures above are early-September street prices; call before you place an order. ACCPC wholesales memory in Guangzhou — Kingston, ADATA, Gloway, KingBank, and Samsung/SK hynix original modules — with 30-day price locks for enterprise buyers, on-site installation and MemTest acceptance. We also build custom PCs and will allocate a fixed budget across memory, SSD and GPU rather than quoting last year's configuration at this year's prices. Call 020-39029800.