ASUS recently released a statement saying that it will be raising its prices for several products, starting 5 January. And the reason behind the brand’s price hike is, unsurprisingly, the rising cost of memory chips and surging AI demand.
ASUS’ decision, which was first published by TrendForce, makes it the third PC company, after Dell and Framework, to announce that it is making cost adjustments to its inventory. At the end of the day, the company just wants to get ahead of the curve of the price surge, but it is important to note that the company did not mention by how much it plans on raising the prices. The news also comes just as ASUS made it clear that it wasn’t manufacturing its own memory.
For the record, Dell said that it would raise the price for its products by up to 30%, while Framework raising the price of its memory modules twice in the past several months, and even announced that it would no longer sell standalone RAM kits. Worst, it could raise the price of its memory kits again this year.
The price for DRAM modules increased by more than 171% in November last year, with the numbers still climbing. As for the price of NAND memory, those have increased by 246% since mid-December last year. It’s gotten so bad that experts saying if you really need the memory upgrade, you should just get it right now, lest they become more expensive. Otherwise, it would serve you best to hold on to what you currently have and wait until the situation tides over.
Again, the demand in AI is what’s causing the surge in pricing for memory products, and why some memory kits cost as much as a mid-range GPU or Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5) console. The irony is that the component, prior to the price and AI surge, was considered one of the cheaper components when DIY PC enthusiasts would plan to build their desktop rig.
(Source: TrendForce, Tom’s Hardware)
