Historical memory prices 1960-2026

The useful criticism was elsewhere. Several readers pointed out that the recent DRAM points include older DDR3 parts, even a 2 GB stick in 2025, which likely makes the present look cheaper than what buyers of current DDR4 or DDR5 systems actually face. That lines up with the broader complaint that this is a good chart for industry cycles but a weak chart for practical upgrade cost. If what you care about is building a current PC or provisioning developer machines, memory feels worse because software footprints, minimum viable configurations, and the floor on what counts as a usable system have all risen. The discussion also converged on why the cycle looks so violent now. Memory has always been cyclical because producers add capacity together, crash prices, pull back, then repeat. What stands out this time is that demand from AI and accelerator-heavy systems has stayed strong enough to keep prices elevated longer than people expected, while manufacturers remain cautious about overbuilding after prior busts. A few readers tied that to physical scaling limits in DRAM itself. Unlike logic chips, DRAM is constrained by tiny capacitors that are getting harder to shrink, which helps explain why the old decades-long decline has slowed. The net read was not that RAM is back to 1960s absurdity or even necessarily back to 2010 in real terms. It was that a resource everyone had treated as steadily cheaper is acting cyclical and scarce again, and that changes both hardware planning and software discipline.