If you are planning a PC upgrade anytime soon, you might want to sit down for this one. The cost of building or refreshing a gaming rig is about to jump, and no one in the gaming space is going to like why. RAM prices have already been creeping up throughout 2025 thanks to tariffs and supply issues, but things took a sharp turn when Micron, the company behind Crucial RAM and SSDs, announced it is leaving the consumer market in 2026.
When a company as big as Micron walks away, it sends shockwaves. Crucial RAM has been selling out, stores are raising prices, and analysts are warning that this is only the beginning. With fewer companies making memory for everyday users, the pressure is going to land squarely on PC gamers, console makers, and developers.
For years, we have had a fairly competitive RAM market thanks to brands like Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, and a few smaller players. That competition kept consumer prices reasonable, even when manufacturing cycles fluctuated. At any point, you could hit up Amazon or stroll into your local Microcenter and grab a memory kit so cheap it felt like you were robbing them. Sometimes you...
