The latest victim of AI-driven RAM price hikes — the cost of building your own laptop

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Rising RAM prices are now impacting more products. Framework recently announced that DDR5 memory costs have increased by 50% for some of its devices.

Right now, the price change only impacts orders for the DIY Edition Framework laptop. Pre-built laptops and Framework Desktop kits are still priced as before. If you’re building your own, you can also order a laptop without RAM or storage and supply those yourself, find discounted RAM elsewhere, or reuse parts from an existing device.

Pre-orders that have already been placed are not affected by the change in RAM pricing.

Below is how much it now costs to add RAM to the Framework Laptop 16 DIY Edition:

  • DDR5-5600 – 8GB (1 x 8GB): +$60
  • DDR5-5600 – 16GB (1 x 16GB): +$120
  • DDR5-5600 – 16GB (2 x 8GB): +$120
  • DDR5-5600 – 32GB (1 x 32GB): +$240
  • DDR5-5600 – 32GB (2 x 16GB): +$240
  • DDR5-5600 – 48GB (1 x 48GB): +$360
  • DDR5-5600 – 64GB (2 x 32GB): +$480
  • DDR5-5600 – 96GB (2 x 48GB): +$720

RAM prices have increased a lot this year, and experts predict they’ll keep going up. Cale Hunt has all the details on what’s causing these price increases.

Essentially, AI needs a lot of computer memory (RAM), and most of the available memory is now going to data centers. The three companies that make most of the world’s RAM – SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron – are now prioritizing production for AI applications.

In February 2026, Micron will completely stop selling RAM to everyday consumers. They recently announced they are discontinuing their Crucial line of memory and storage products, and have been open about the reasons behind this decision.

The increasing use of artificial intelligence is driving up demand for data center memory and storage. To better serve our biggest customers and focus on faster-growing areas of the market, Micron has decided to stop selling products under the Crucial brand for everyday consumers.

Framework mentioned the high memory needs of AI data centers when explaining a price increase for memory in certain laptop models.

As a researcher tracking the growth of AI, I’m seeing incredible demand for memory. The new AI data centers and the servers powering them are using huge amounts of it. For example, just one rack of NVIDIA’s GB300 system needs 20 terabytes of HBM3E and 17 terabytes of LPDDR5X – that’s enough LPDDR5X for a thousand laptops! And these data centers aren’t using just one rack; they’re filled with thousands of them, driving up memory consumption dramatically.

Our analysis indicates a strong probability that we’ll need to raise prices on DDR5 memory modules across a range of systems. This includes devices utilizing not only DDR5, but also those with LPDDR5X or GDDR memory technologies. We anticipate this will be necessary due to current market conditions.

The company is committed to clear and straightforward pricing. They also pledged to reduce prices if their own costs decrease, and will try to minimize costs internally to keep prices as low as possible.

Framework is now requiring anyone returning a laptop to also return the RAM installed in it, as a way to prevent people from buying laptops just to resell the parts.

As a researcher tracking the PC market, I’m seeing significant price increases coming. It’s not just Framework; TrendForce reports Dell is planning to raise PC prices by at least 15-20% potentially as soon as this month. And Lenovo has cautioned customers that their current price quotes are only guaranteed through the end of the year, suggesting further increases are likely.

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2025-12-12 16:40