DRAM shortages are not the problem (really, and I'll explain why)

TLDR(simplified also):

1. 16gb of DDR5 only went up to around $19.20(uncontracted indutry price, for basic DDR5)
2. the $36.67 you might have seen is for 16gb of specially binned high performance DDR5 for overclocking and such. still even that is much cheaper than you pay
3. 8gb GDDR6 costs $7.15
4. assembly of a DDR5 stick is easy, extra components needed are very cheap and didn't increase in price.
5. a $12 to $20 increase in price for DDR5 per 16gb would have covered the price.
6. yes DDR5 chips did actually increase over 3 times in price, but news conveiniently leaves out what it cost the companies before those price increases the prices I list above are after price increases.
7. The reason DDR5 sticks are so expensive is because companies know you don't know what is actually going on, and they know they can rip you off, and decided to do so asuming to not be caught, but they went to far and now pissed me off hard enough to report them to you people(if you are smart you can even use this to force them to pay for their mistakes making DDR5 much cheaper than it was before the price increases.
8. the DRAM shortage was actually speciffically about HBM, a type of vram mostly only used in high end AI chips, news just brought it in a way suggesting all was influenced, which led to a pannick wave which resulted in actual serious price increases.(your pc likely won't use any HBM unless you have a amd vega 64 or amd vega 56 or such)
9. the HBM the AI companies buy now, they can't even use, as they already didn't have enough electric power available to power all the new hardware they already had even before they decided to buy up all HBM
10. there is link below which shows current average prices for DRAM chips which companies buy them for if not having a contract or needing more than their contract states, while I don't know the site very well, it aligns with the numbers I got directly from companies, and sicne it is public info I can share it openly here, actually that site displays slightly higher prices than the price those companies pointed to. so the prices they list there are accurate to what companies pay for them if not having a contract or wanting more than contracted, I can't speak about the rest of the site as I only checked to see if the prices where accurate, so I had some publickly available info to reffer to for legal reasons.

END of TLDR

when building a new pc you go to a shop, and they ask piles of money even for a small amount of basic ram. the shop tells you "prices are high due to DRAM shortages".
you probably beleive them, but it is a lie.
the true reason is that you are being ripped off, companies know you know of the DRAM shortages but don't know any of the actual numbers other than perhaps DDR5 chips being 2 to 3 times more expensive now,
the actual price difference on a ram stick would be around $12 to $20.
also note despite how it seems, currently there is still only a actual shortage in HBM, which is a type of vram mostly only used in AI boards.

here are some numbers, current prices companies without a contract need to pay to get the following DRAM chips.(average prices based on the last week during which the prices where actually at their highest yet)

• 16GB of DDR5 eTT costing $19.20 (eTT is the kind of ram used in prebuilds, it means effectively tested, so it is tested for normal rated clocks but isn't specially tested or binned for serious overclocking, it is essentially "normal" DDR5*)(this is for 2 chips of 8gb)*
• 16GB of specially binned high performance overclockeable DDR5 costs $36.67*(again 2 chips of 8gb, these 8gb chips are also the ones most desired by AI companies from all the DRAM chips excluding HBM of the chips available without a contract)*
• 8GB of GDDR6 costing $7.15*(for a single 8gb chip(*1))*
• 512GB of TLC(ssd) costing $15.05*(for a single 512gb TLC chip)*
• these prices are only for the Dram chips themselves, it excludes the PCB, assembly, actual gpu itself, and that kind of stuff, but those things where not affected by the Dram price increases. of a DDR5 ram stick for example, the other hardware adds between around $2 and $15 for companies, less overclockeable and lower capacity is cheaper. most of the cost in the cheap options is the pcb itself, though the added components also add a bit, primairily the power controller and such, those vary a lot in price depending on how high end of a chip one wants to use, for a 8gb 16gb eTT module one can use basically the cheapest option they can find, with the expensive side being basically what a consumer can get the rest of the components for(unless scalpers made those prices increase or companies removed availability to consumers) if building a quite good capacity overclockeable ram stick. prices of custommer support and firmware development and such are normally also a noteable factor which I didn't fully include here, the main reason is that those costs normally only are high since ram sticks are designed to only sell a few of each type as there are higher margins to be gained there by advertising countless of slightly different ram sticks for high prices, but if making it in a bigger series the price greatly goes down, also most of the actual hardware and design is similar between them, often only a few differences.

https://www.dramexchange.com/ (note I am do not know much about that specific site, however their info is openly available, and I found that their numbers actually matched up with numbers I got more directly from companies, actually they tend to list them slightly higher in price than what most of those companies reffered to, but the info on this site is openly available so is something I can openly share, NOTE DRAM is not sold directly to custommers, if some site or such on the internet claims to sell it directly to a custommer be aware as generally those either sell for insane markups or try to scam one. I only confirmed the numbers on that site to be accurate, I didn't check the rest of the site)
(note the price of complete high performance DDR5 sticks is listed as high there, this is because most companies actually make their own DDR5 sticks, as that is quite simple and cheap, especially one sided ram sticks are very simple and cheap to make, due to this the prices of complete ram sticks are more based upon the prices of consumer ram sticks(their direct competition) than they are based upon actual prices, companies only buy those sticks directly if they really need to due to someting weird)

so technically seen a 32gb stick of DDR5 eTT(normal ddr5) could be made for less than $50
even with the current price increases having made the DDR5 chips more than 3 times as expensive as they where before.
even before the price increases companies sold 16gb sticks for more than double that(around $100 while costing around $25 to $30 to make).
before I accepted those numbers, after all since people reuse ram sticks for quite long, DDR5 was relatively new, and there are many different types of DDR5 sticks all of which need to have their own web page which needs to remain online for a while, documentaion, design and firmware, even if most of it is the same and just a few random things altered, many of those sticks where designed to be sold not to many people, as in the end most of the ram actual in use by consumers ends up being the ram used in prebuilds normally, pc ram for diy builds is essentially a candy store. so I accepted those margins.
like one might say selling it for 4 times the build cost is insane, but with the conditions I accepted it.
now however those companies used the fact that people have likely heard DRAM shortages, and DDR5 getting 2 to 3 times as expensive as well as the pannick wave, and people not knowing those price increases where of the actual DRAM chips, not of the ram stick cost.
and yet they used it to increase the ram prices 3 times, essentially intentionally heavily ripping their custommers off because they know they get away with it.
or rather they assumed to get away with it.
which is speciffically why I made this post now.
they went to far, surely there is a problem.
but those prices I listed are uncontracted prices, so even if they sell all of their contracted chips to AI companies, they can buy more chips without a contract for those prices, their contracted prices actually typically are much lower.
instead they use it to artificially drive their own prices up much further.
which is straight up abusive and is essentially a monopoly/kartel all be it a unspoken one since they all know the others will follow them and do the same.
(note there are a few companies not following them, but those don't make ram sticks. but there are companies selling to consumers which sell complete new mini pc's current produce for much less than consumer ram companies charge for the ram sticks only.
like one example is one selling a 8 core mini pc with 12gb of DDR5, and even the fancy AI NPU stuff in it since the apu used in it is one of those "AI" chips many companies normally charge a premium for, selling it for €87 in netherlands, current produce, so actually made during the dram price increases, the 12gb version was actually made speciffically to make it cheaper as no companies want 12gb modules making them much better value. this is a tiny company. I won't name them of the speciffic pc I reffered to now or other to clear identifiers as I don't want people buying those only to take out the ram, but pc entausiasts might already know them(note prices in usa are much higher due to insanely high tarifs(tax) as it is a small company to small to buy a usa tax discount).
once the price increases are over or fixed atleast somewhat I can tell what they where kind of to pay respect to one of the only companies selling to consumers which didnt abuse this. though they aren't the only one, actually some other companies targeting the same audience also sell complete mini pc's for much cheaper than a single 16gb ram stick costs. but most of those companies are relatively small, so wouldn't want to point scalpers their way, and instead rather keep it available for the audience they are actually aimed at.)

I make this post to show people that while the HBM shortage also caused DDR5 and other dram products to rise in price, the actual main problem is that the companies making ram sticks, the real price increases custommers notice is actually consumer oriented companies intentionally ripping custommers off assuming to get away with it.

like they told you DDR5 chips being 2 to 3 times as expensive.
what they didn't tell you is that the price of the DDR5 chips was only around 5% to 10% of the price one paid for a DDR5 ram stick.

also note they call it DRAM shortage, but in reality the shortage is speciffically in HBM, and is largely related to some budged version of HBM4 which was postponed without clear new date.
AI companies and their shareholders pannicked, wanted something new to show of to the general share holders and such so decided to just buy up all other HBM, kind of a mix of a pannick reaction blended with showing off.

this despite them already having piles of new hardware they can't actually use due to not having enough electric power to power it all, even already before this happened. so you might be happy to know there was a good reason for them to buy all that HBM ram, after all they bought it to show off having it but not actually use it, don't you think that to be a perfectly valid reason. this went so far, that right now they buy it in a way more similar like crypto currency or a general stock market, buying piles of it to controll the price and drive it up so their other stuff can be sold for much more.

media companies like basically always played along, speciffically labeling it as DRAM shortages while in reality the shortage was only in HBM.
(while DDR5 prices increased there actually has been a reduction in demand due to consumers not buying it anymore for those inflated prices, and AI companies mostly wanting HBM, they wanted some more DDR5 than first for a while but already can't use it anyone), still prices keep going up due to value sentiment, essentially noone can buy it, so assume it has a high value which in term actually makes it more expensive causing people to not be able to buy it.
HBM had a real shortage, DDR5 had higher demand for a while, but never had a real full shortage, price increases mainly came from pannick, waves, and companies seeking to abuse people a lot leading to lower DDR5 sales which also results in the company making it asking more money for it even if they have more then enough produce, since they can only sell a certain amount of it now due to those inflated prices resulting in people not buying it anymore. see it like selling cookies to a store for very cheap, then suddenly that store starts asking insane amounts for them resulting in basically noone buying it anymore, meaning you don't make any money anymore, so either you ask much more for it to make up for it, or you have to somehow convince that store to not sell it for over 20 times as much as they should.

actually this is very similar to when the media started pushing people to buy bitcoin despite everyone already knowing it was gonna drop heavily around a month later, which was exactly the reason they pushed it.
in this case, it is probably done just for the sake of driving up ram prices in general to make sure people don't build modern pc's anymore so that the AI bubble doesn't pop, since the moment everyone has like one of those modern APU's or just a somewhat modern decent pc the AI bubble pops, since we already crossed the point where essentially all AI tools can be run on normal hardware locally, and well enough for a normal person to have no issues with it.
that has long be seen as the moment the AI bubble would pop. so in simple words, AI companies know they have lost, but now they try to postpone it by manipulating ram prices instead of figuring out a good way to change themselves. like look at what blender did they originate from a software which was kind of the peak of modelling and animation, then normal people could run it more and there was piles of competition, they went opensource and became a foundation and as a result it still is the most use and possibly best animation and 3d design software in the world.

(*1), note that in GPU's adding support for more vram is more expensive than the actual vram chips themselves, as adding a wider memory bus to a gpu adds way more cost often also using a lot of area on the main gpu die, but also other components and pcb and design wise. it generally doesn't make much sense to make a gpu which has 2 versions where one has more vram than the other yet further is the same, well unless part of the chips in the 8gb version is faulty for example and so couldn't be made a 16gb version or such.
but upgrading a gpu from 8gb to 16gb would cost a company less than $10 if they already have a design for the 16gb version and the gpu die already supports the wider bus. for narrow bus width support 8gb can make it noteably cheaper but that would be a different gpu die which wouldn't support 16gb, as most of the cost is making it support it.

(*extra)
note some data, numbers and refferences are based upon data from companies directly which might not be publickly shared, which is why I used a open source to reffer to. the stuf regarding the demand for DDR5 actually lowering while prices continue to rise is based upon data from certain chinese vendors, there have been public articles made about that, you can find those online if you search for it. the shortage actually only being in HBM is common knowledge in the industry, you can deduct it back or find some random company or document reffering to it as well.
the part about AI companies using it to prolong the time before the AI bubble pops is based on previous similar causes yet is speculation, as that part has no official proof which I am allowed to reffer to(though there have been direct statement of certain people involved, the only clue I am allowed to give here(since ther is also public info regarding this available meaning I won't be leaking classified info but instead am speculating about clasified info I might or migt not know about which might actually be influenced on some info publickly available due to certain thigns the CEO of microsoft recently said in a business intervieuw around half a year ago when asked about what the main danger towards the AI bubble is. that said microsoft has less to lose if the AI bubble pops than many other AI companies, as they can reuse most of the infrastructure, and their AI stuf gets bundled with their os which gets bundled with most pcs.
still I have to add a disclaimer that the part regarding the price increases seeming to be done intentional to prolong the AI bubble be seen as pure speculation, like a small possibility, meaning that no sensitive info of which I wouldn't have the permission to disclose it here would have been disclosed here. meaning this is legal as it is just a hypothecal speculation.

NOTE HOWEVER, the INFO REGARDING THE PRICES AND SUCH AND IT ACTUALLY BEING A HBM shortage, ARE TRUE, you can find most of them easily, and as mentioned the prices that link lists for uncontracted ram prices are very accurate based on numbers from other companies.