At this point, it’s probably safe to assume that anything memory-adjacent is going to be a victim of RAM shortage-induced price hikes. But just in case there are some folks out there still hoping all this will soon blow over, and if the point needs driving home, consider the fact that even Raspberry Pi is raising prices for its computers thanks to the memory shortage.
This is notable because Raspberry Pi SBCs (single-board computers) are normally very consistent in pricing. As the company points out, “at $35, a 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 costs the same as a 256MB Raspberry Pi 1 from 2012.” But now prices are being raised. Here are the exact increases as Raspberry lays it out:
Product Memory Old price New price Increase Raspberry Pi 4 4 GB $55 $60 9% Raspberry Pi 4 8 GB $75 $85 13% Raspberry Pi 5 1 GB – $45 – Raspberry Pi 5 2 GB $50 $55 10% Raspberry Pi 5 4 GB $60 $70 17% Raspberry Pi 5 8 GB $80 $95 19% Raspberry Pi 5 16 GB $120 $145 21%
The biggest increases, proportionally, are hitting the 4 GB and 8 GB configurations of the Raspberry Pi 5. That could possibly be because the Pi 5 uses faster LPDDR4X-4267 memory, compared to the Pi 4’s LPDDR4-3200—perhaps the makers of the former have raised prices for that DRAM more than the latter. Whatever the case, the latest generation of Raspberry Pi is bearing the brunt of it.
The 8 GB version of the Pi 4 is also getting a pretty big price hike, though. It makes sense, I suppose: the more RAM on the device, the bigger the increase will need to be.
The Raspberry Pi 5’s upgraded memory is part of its appeal compared to the previous version, when combined with its other new I/O capabilities. I said as much in my review of the SBC for another publication almost two years ago. The Pi 5 introduced a new I/O chip, which allows for more and faster I/O, including a PCIe connector, which I also tested and found to work a charm with an NVMe SSD.
(Image credit: Future)
The memory in there, plus these new I/O capabilities, was key to making the Pi 5 a cheap and tiny genuine desktop replacement, arguably for the first time in the history of the SBC lineup. But pricing was a potential sticking point even at launch, let alone with this $25 slapped on top.
Then again, I suppose this could be a rising tide to, er, sink all boats. Ie, if all memory-laden devices go up in cost, the Pi 5 will still be just as cheap, relative to the new cost of other devices.
The new thing to look out for might be which companies are clinging on to old, pre-memory shortage prices, though I can’t imagine such items will stay in stock for long. We’ve already seen gaming PC prices shoot up on the tail end of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and I don’t see next year bringing any better news.
Best guesses seem to be that the memory supply crisis will continue beyond 2028. So while Raspberry Pi attempts to reassure customers that the “current pressure on memory prices” is “painful but ultimately temporary”, I suppose it’s all a matter of how one defines “temporary.” Three-plus years might be temporary in the long run, but it certainly won’t feel like it as weeks roll into months and years.
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