RAM prices up 500%: buy local AI hardware now, says analyst roundup
julianharris · x · 2026-09-27
- RAM prices have surged 500% since 2025, driven by AI datacenters hoarding memory, especially HBM built by stacking DRAM (HBM4 raising the stacks further).
- The author argues now is the best time to buy local AI hardware: prices will keep rising for a couple of years and may only dip below today's levels around 2029 — but they're never going back.
- For a viable local coding agent, 128GB RAM is the minimum for the foreseeable future if you don't have an Nvidia RTX card; the RAM buying question is settled based on five analyst sources.
- The author claims to run an Opus-level coding agent locally at nearly 2x Claude Opus speed, for free.
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