RAM Prices Won't Fall Until 2028: What UK Buyers Should Do

If you've checked RAM prices in the last few months and flinched, you're not imagining it. What's new this week is a clearer picture of why it's happening, and it's worse than most buyers assume. Samsung has confirmed plans to more than double its output of HBM4 and HBM4E memory next year, and that capacity has to come from somewhere. It's coming from the same fabs that make the DDR4 and DDR5 sitting in your desktop or laptop.

This isn't a story about a temporary squeeze that eases once a factory catches up. It's a structural reallocation of memory manufacturing towards AI data centres, and it's the reason RAM prices have kept climbing through 2026 even as manufacturers insisted supply was improving. If you're planning a build or an upgrade, the honest answer to 'when will RAM prices come down' is: not soon, and possibly not meaningfully until 2028.

Why RAM prices keep climbing

DRAM manufacturing capacity is finite. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron between them run the fabs that produce almost all the world's memory, whether that's the DDR5 in a gaming PC or the HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) stacked onto an AI accelerator. When one type of memory becomes vastly more profitable than the other, wafer capacity migrates towards it. That's exactly what's happening now.

HBM is not simply 'more DRAM.' It's built by stacking multiple DRAM dies vertically and connecting them with through-silicon vias, a far more complex process than producing a standard DDR5 die. Industry estimates on the conversion cost vary, but the consistent theme is that a given amount of fab capacity yields dramatically fewer usable gigabytes when it's making HBM instead of conventional DRAM. Analysts covering the sector have pointed to a ratio in the region of three to one. Convert a slice of a fab from DDR5 to HBM and you don't just lose that slice of DDR5 output, you lose several times more capacity than the HBM gains you in bytes.

Samsung's HBM4 announcement matters because it signals the direction of that conversion, not a one-off blip. AI accelerator demand has made HBM the most profitable product a memory maker can build right now, and every gigabyte diverted to it is a gigabyte that doesn't reach the consumer DDR5 market.

This isn't about your graphics card

It's worth being precise here, because the story gets garbled easily. HBM is not the memory in your gaming GPU. Consumer graphics cards, including the ones on our GPU pages, use GDDR6 or GDDR7, a different product built on different lines. HBM goes into AI accelerators such as Nvidia and AMD's data-centre chips, not into the RTX or Radeon card in your case. The squeeze from HBM hits system memory, the DDR4 and DDR5 kits you'd buy from our RAM listings, because HBM and standard DRAM are manufactured on the same fab lines and compete for the same wafer starts. Your graphics card is caught up in a separate GDDR shortage of its own, but that's a different bottleneck with a different cause.

When RAM prices might actually come down

We've been cautious about calling a bottom before. Our March-to-July UK price tracking showed prices rising steadily through the first half of 2026, and our look at DDR5 pricing earlier in the year found increases far sharper than the official inflation narrative suggested. Nothing in the HBM4 news changes that picture for the better.

New fab capacity takes years to bring online, and the expansions currently under construction at Samsung, SK hynix and Micron are largely scheduled to start production in 2027 at the earliest. Even once new lines do open, there's no guarantee they'll be dedicated to consumer DRAM rather than more HBM, given how much more profitable the latter remains while AI accelerator demand holds up. The realistic window most industry watchers are pointing to for meaningful, sustained relief on ordinary DDR5 pricing is late 2027 into 2028, not next quarter and not next year.

There's a genuine disagreement about how this resolves. One view is straightforward supply and demand: elevated prices eventually justify the capital cost of new fabs, supply catches up, and the cycle turns into an oversupply glut the way DRAM cycles usually do. The other view is more sceptical, pointing to memory manufacturers' history of price-fixing findings and arguing that a market with three dominant suppliers doesn't need to rush to fix a shortage that's earning them record margins. Both are plausible. Neither gets you cheaper RAM this year.

What this means for your build

The practical question isn't when prices will fall, it's what to do while they don't.

If you need RAM soon

Buy what you need and stop there. Speculative 'buy extra now before it gets worse' purchasing is exactly the kind of demand spike that makes shortages worse for everyone, and it ties up cash in a component that a market correction could eventually make look expensive. Check current kit prices on our RAM category page before you commit. If you're unsure how much you actually need, our RAM buying guide is a better starting point than a rule of thumb from two years ago; requirements have shifted, but so has the cost of over-provisioning.

If you can wait

If your current system is still doing the job, waiting is a reasonable call, but wait with the right expectation. This isn't a six-month dip. If you're planning a build for 2027, budget for RAM prices at or above today's levels rather than assuming a return to 2024 pricing. Track the UK PC Parts Price Index rather than any single retailer's listing, since spot prices swing with stock levels far more than the underlying trend does.

If you're building from scratch

RAM is one line item in a much bigger budget. Pair your memory decision with the rest of the platform on our CPU and motherboard pages, and don't let a RAM price spike push you into an underpowered CPU or a board with too few DIMM slots to grow later. Cutting capacity now to save money is more defensible than cutting platform quality.

The bottom line

Samsung doubling HBM4E output isn't really a story about Samsung. It's confirmation that the DRAM industry has decided AI accelerators are worth more per wafer than the memory in your PC, and that decision doesn't reverse until either AI demand cools or enough new capacity comes online to satisfy both markets. Neither looks close. Buy what you need, avoid panic-buying, and treat any RAM price you see in 2026 or 2027 as the new normal rather than a temporary spike to wait out. For the current picture rather than a forecast, our full product catalogue tracks live UK pricing across every category.

Source: Samsung is expected to more than double output of its HBM4 and HBM4E DRAM