Rising Prices: Mid-Range PCs May Start Using 8 GB RAM Instead Of 16 GB

Artificial intelligence (AI) companies may be the reason why mid-range personal computers will start using 8 GB of random access memory instead of 16GB. As the AI firms' widespread purchase and usage of specialised RAM modules are creating a shortage in the supply side of the domestic PC memory market.

According to a report by PCWorld, researchers at TrendForce have projected that price fluctuations in consumer RAM modules may take place in the spring of 2026.

The shortage in consumer RAM is due to major manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron moving away from making consumer RAM to creating High-Bandwidth Memory chips for AI datacentres which have 10 times higher margins.

With these chips using more silicon than the domestic version, known as the domestic DDR5 PC RAM, manufactuers are moving away from making them.

These price fluctuations will take place once laptop retailers run out of their stock of physical RAM memory modules, making memory more expensive and hence having a higher price passed on to consumers.

With the previous pricing system customers could expect to buy a budget laptop with 8 GB RAM, mid-range laptop with 16 GB RAM and a high-end premium laptop with 64 GB RAM.

The new pricing system is expected to have premium laptops use 16 GB of RAM instead of 64 GB, with mid-range laptops in turn using 8 GB instead.

There may not be a budget tier laptop that uses 6GB of RAM (or below 8GB) due to the Window's 11 operating system requiring heavier performance specifications that 6GB might not be able to provide, according to researchers.

This could mean that budget laptops might become a relic of the past in the near future.

Smartphones are not safe from the physical memory apocalypse either as phones with entry level and mid-range specs would come in the range of 4GB to 12GB but not higher. And premium smartphones would not be able to have more than 12 GB of RAM either, according to the researchers' projections.