- A high-end DDR5 RAM kit now costs more than an RTX 5090
- That’s a 192GB kit for workstation use, mind
- Even enthusiast consumer kits weighing in at 128GB now cost three-quarters of the price of Nvidia’s Founders Edition of the Blackwell flagship
Did you ever think we’d live in a world where a high-end DDR5 RAM kit would cost more than an Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU? No, me neither, but here we are.
This is the latest installment in the saga of RAM price inflation, which has been heading skywards since October 2025 (or late September in some cases), and appears to only be worsening.
VideoCardz reports that Corsair’s Vengeance 192GB DDR5 RAM kit, which comprises four 48GB memory modules, now tips the scales at $2,225 in the US (from Corsair’s online store).
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That’s considerably more than the list price of $1,999 for Nvidia‘s Founders Edition of the RTX 5090 (and not far off the asking price of third-party flagship GPUs, either).
The same is true with some new high-end RAM kits in China manufactured by Asgard. A 256GB kit in that country now costs 3% more than the official list price for China’s spin on the Blackwell flagship (the Nvidia RTX 5090 D V2).
Analysis: sign of the times
(Image credit: Shutterstock / Dean Drobot)
Okay, so 192GB or 256GB RAM kits are high-end workstation offerings, but still – it’s mind-boggling that any PC RAM kit would outstrip the asking price of an RTX 5090. And this certainly wasn’t the case until very recently.
Even if we look at a lesser RAM kit listed on Newegg, one that could find its way into an enthusiast consumer’s PC, the Corsair Vengeance 128GB kit (a pair of 64GB modules) is within a whisker of $1,500 in the US (all prices are correct at the time of writing). That’s three-quarters of the recommended price of Nvidia’s RTX 5090, and given the steep rise in cost of RAM modules it wouldn’t come as any great surprise if, before too long – maybe early in 2026 – this kind of memory kit is pricier than the Blackwell flagship.
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The question is where this price inflation will end up, and I’ve got a bad feeling that it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. There’s been talk of RAM supplies pretty much drying up entirely for PC builders and upgraders, and I wouldn’t bet against that – and what is available to purchase may end up with truly exorbitant price tags when you consider scalpers and so forth.
Is building (or buying) a PC about to become very pricey indeed thanks not just to huge RAM price hikes, but also increases in the cost of SSDs, and also GPUs to boot? If you ask this question of your magic 8-ball and give it a shake, I think you’ll find that the signs point (mostly) to yes, sadly.
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