- A high-end DDR5 RAM kit now costs more than an RTX 5090
- It is a 192GB kit for workstation use
- Even enthusiast consumer kits weighing in at 128GB now cost three-quarters of the price of Nvidia’s Founders Edition of the Blackwell flagship
Did you ever think we’d live in a world where a high-end DDR5 RAM kit would cost more than an Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU? No, me neither, but here we are.
This is the latest installment in the saga of RAM price inflation, which has been skyrocketing since October 2025 (or late September in some cases), and looks set to only get worse.
VideoCardz reports that Corsair’s Vengeance 192GB DDR5 RAM kit, which includes four 48GB memory modules, now tips the scales at $2,225 in the US (from Corsair’s online store).
That’s significantly more than the $1,999 list price of Nvidia’s Founders Edition of the RTX 5090 (and not far off the asking price of third-party flagship GPUs, either).
The same is the case with some new high-end RAM kits in China manufactured by Asgard. A 256GB kit in that country now costs 3% more than the official list price for China’s spin on the Blackwell flagship (Nvidia RTX 5090 D V2).
Analysis: Signs of the times
Okay, so 192GB or 256GB RAM kits are high-end workstation offerings, but still – it’s unbelievable that any PC RAM kits would exceed the asking price of an RTX 5090. And this certainly wasn’t the case until very recently.
Even looking at a smaller RAM kit listed on Newegg, one that could find its way into an enthusiast consumer PC, the Corsair Vengeance 128GB kit (a pair of 64GB modules) is within a whisker of $1,500 in the US (all prices correct at time of writing). That’s three-quarters of the RRP of Nvidia’s RTX 5090, and given the skyrocketing cost of RAM modules, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if before too long – perhaps as early as 2026 – this kind of memory kit is more expensive than the Blackwell flagship.
The question is where this price inflation will end up, and I have a bad feeling it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. There’s been talk of RAM supplies pretty much drying up for PC builders and upgraders, and I wouldn’t bet against that – and what’s available to buy can end up with really exorbitant price tags when you factor in scalpers and so on.
Is building (or buying) a PC becoming very expensive, not just thanks to huge RAM price increases, but also increases in the cost of SSDs and also GPUs to boot? If you ask your magic 8 ball this question and shake it, I think you’ll find that the signs (mostly) point to yes, unfortunately.
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