The crisis in the memory market has reached its peak: DDR5 prices have risen two to four times in October and November, and motherboard sales for leaders like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have fallen by forty to fifty percent. This is the most dramatic decline in recent years, especially painful during the holiday season when demand usually spikes. Wccftech and industry analysts from Commercial Times and TrendForce trace the situation to the artificial intelligence boom, which has drained consumer chip supplies. Here is why this is happening and what the market can expect.

The explosion in DDR5 prices: one hundred to two hundred fifty percent growth

It all began with a shift in production. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron redirected up to eighty percent of their manufacturing capacity to HBM, the high bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators from NVIDIA and AMD. Consumer DDR5 and even DDR4 fell into shortage. According to Commercial Times, contract prices increased by one hundred seventy one point eight percent year over year, and in November alone by thirty to fifty percent quarter over quarter. Specific examples:

  • A two by sixteen gigabyte DDR5-6000 kit rose from ninety one dollars in July to one hundred eighty three dollars in November (a doubling).
  • In Russia, Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-5400 (two by sixteen gigabytes) increased from eight thousand five hundred rubles in summer to fourteen thousand rubles now.

Retailers such as DNS and Citilink confirm that shelves are empty, and demand for older DDR4 memory (still compatible with Ryzen 5000 and Intel twelfth to thirteenth generation) has grown by thirty percent, though DDR4 prices have also risen by fifty to one hundred percent.

The full transition to DDR5: a trap for PC builders

The problem is amplified by the current standard. New AMD platforms (AM5, Ryzen 9000) and Intel platforms (LGA 1851, Arrow Lake) support only DDR5. There is no option for a cheap upgrade using DDR4. One must either buy a new DDR5 kit or keep using old hardware. As a result, enthusiasts are delaying new builds, and the PC market is stagnating. TrendForce forecasts global motherboard shipments in the fourth quarter of 2025 will fall by twenty five to thirty percent compared to last year.

In Russia, the effect is even stronger. Local system integrators such as Aquarius report a thirty five percent decline in orders, and dependence on imports (ninety percent of motherboards from Taiwan and China) adds logistical risks.

The consequences: a chain reaction across the entire market

Falling motherboard sales drag down processor shipments. AMD and Intel expect a fifteen to twenty percent decline in the first quarter of 2026. Even SSD prices are rising. NAND prices have increased by one hundred twenty percent, with TLC chip pricing rising from four dollars eighty cents to ten dollars seventy cents. Retailers are experimenting with bundle deals of motherboard plus DDR5 memory in Asia, but this does not help. Users who already bought a motherboard cannot upgrade without memory.

Analysts at Gaz Log warn that the memory market’s upward cycle will continue until mid 2026, with thirty to fifty percent growth each quarter. ADATA describes the current cycle as hot, worse than in 2021.

What enthusiasts and vendors should do

For PC builders: choose platforms compatible with DDR4 if they still exist or wait for stabilization in the second half of 2026. An alternative is cloud gaming or cloud based AI workloads that require no local hardware.

For vendors: rethink strategy through bundles, discounts, and a stronger focus on enterprise markets such as servers using HBM. Gigabyte and MSI have already announced anti crisis promotions.

In short

The motherboard market in 2025 has collapsed by forty to fifty percent due to DDR5 prices rising two to four times, triggered by the AI boom and chip shortages as Samsung and SK Hynix diverted eighty percent of capacity to HBM. The transition of AMD and Intel to DDR5 only platforms has left users with no affordable upgrade options, paralyzing PC builds. The downturn is expected to continue until mid 2026 with thirty to fifty percent quarterly price growth. Enthusiasts should delay upgrades, vendors should offer bundles and discounts, and the market is entering an upward cycle worse than that of 2021.