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Crucial is shutting down — because Micron wants to sell its RAM and SSDs to AI companies instead
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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My 5-year-old mainboard only supports DDR4. I'm just looking to increase my RAM and have two free slots available. But even the prices of DDR4 sticks have increased 100%-200% compared to a year ago.
They are more affordable than DDR5 sticks to be sure but still crazy.
A decent chunk of that is due to DDR4 production shutting down. If you look to the past you can see that DDR3 prices rose a while after the introduction of DDR4 too. In fact it got more expensive than DDR4, before vanishing completely.
Another thing driving up prices is tariffs and trade restrictions - usually when the main players like Micron, SK Hynix, or Samsung want to stop selling certain chips (say, DRAM at a certain binned frequency), they sell to Chinese manufacturers who are willing to sell slightly lower quality NAND for a lower profit margin.
But that's not happening - the Chinese companies aren't buying up the machines like they used to, because a tariff could easily wipe out their margins. It's not worth the risk.
Add AI to that (not that many are using DDR4), and it makes a bad situation worse.
The AI aspect may get better soon, but the top two won't. I don't think you'll be able to get new DDR4 for a good price at any point going ahead. Your best bet is to buy used if you see a reasonable deal.
Good points. Looking at eBay, the sellers of used DDR4 seem to have caught on to the price increases and are asking for the same unpleasant prices. I guess the best time to buy more RAM was a year ago and the second best time for it is now.