the memory kit i bought earlier this year has been within ~10% of the price for the past 8 months. do with that as you may. a simple ddr5 stick of 6000 mt/s cl30 if wondering.

ever since i had my own money, gpu or general hardware had some excuse to fleece us. however, with ram the blatant collusion throughout history does not invite confidence.

this looks as dramatic as it does because the recent trend happened right after a major crash in prices. throughout the years, the usual price for an 8gb stick would hover around 50-80 usd (albeit laptop one, might be lower for desktop). ddr5 also started being 50-100% more expensive than the incumbent when it first dropped. it took a better part of a year to be in a similar price bracket as ddr4.

all this to say, this situation sucks but those of us with 64+ gigs, bought during the last crash, are eating good but got used to using much more memory than they really need.

while it is insane to pay a decent cpu price for 16 gigs today, getting a "good enough" computer still makes more economic sense than a max plan from a frontier lab.