About to upgrade your PC’s RAM? Hold fire, as prices could soon drop by 20%

If you’ve been mulling over upgrading the system memory on your PC, then you might want to wait a bit longer, as a new report suggests that the price of RAM could soon drop by as much as 20%.

This is according to DRAMeXchange, the memory-watching division of analyst firm TrendForce, which has forecast a drop in DRAM prices of almost 20% in the first quarter of this year.

The reason? It’s the usual story of plentiful supply and weak demand bringing price pressures to bear on the hardware. Quite simply, there’s a lot of system RAM kicking about, partly because the ‘traditional’ slow season kicked off earlier in the final quarter of 2018, meaning surplus stock built up to a greater extent at the tail end of last year.

And that’s combined with a pessimistic economic outlook in the medium and longer-term, which doesn’t help.

Further falls?

Prices for 4GB and 8GB RAM sticks have already begun to drop this year, and price tags are expected to fall by at least 10% in January, and perhaps more in the following two months. The most notable decline will happen in the world of server DRAM.

As mentioned, the overall prediction is a drop of nearly 20%, which is a gloomier outlook than the previous speculation that pointed to a 15% decrease.

The outlook for the rest of this year isn’t exactly peachy, either, with price declines quite possibly continuing past Q1. The report notes: “Going forward, 2019 will be even more challenging for module makers and the rest of the supply chain.”

That means a sit and wait policy when it comes to buying system RAM may pay further dividends for those who are prepared to be even more patient before pulling the trigger.

Via Tom’s Hardware

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).