{"id":126463,"date":"2026-05-05T10:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T08:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=126463"},"modified":"2026-05-05T11:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:05:39","slug":"south-africas-ram-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/126463-south-africas-ram-disaster","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s RAM disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Research by MyGaming has found that RAM prices in South Africa have continued to skyrocket over the past five months \u2013 in some cases more than doubling over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These increases – which started back in 2025 – are being caused by the massive amount of computing power required for AI infrastructure, which has increased demand for memory and other important hardware across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Global technology hyperscalers like Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI are all investing heavily into AI infrastructure to be the first to achieve important AI breakthroughs \u2013 such as AGI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has had a knock-on effect on the everyday consumer \u2013 such as the gamer who wants to kit out their system with more high-performance RAM, or the professional who wants to upgrade their business laptop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Aki Anastasiou on What\u2019s Next<\/strong><\/a> in February, Craig Nowitz \u2013 CEO of South African tech distributor Syntech – said tech price spikes are showing no sign of slowing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe issues are getting worse,\u201d said Nowitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPricing this side of the year [From 1 January until 10 February] is probably up another 50%, and it is getting tough out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no obvious short-term solution, either. Building a new facility to produce the silicon wafers used in RAM will require, according to Nowitz, \u201c$5-10 billion and a good 3-5 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Syntech CEO Craig Nowitz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Comparing RAM prices in South Africa<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The global RAM shortage is a growing concern \u2013 and South Africans have not been shielded from these issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyGaming decided to measure how much RAM prices have increased in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To do this, we chose one of South Africa\u2019s most popular online PC hardware stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then compared the prices on their RAM listings from the end of 2025, to pricing for the identical products as of 30 April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most RAM products were found to have increased in price by 60-90% \u2013 with one product more than doubling in price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This data is detailed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Product<\/strong><\/td>Price: 5 December 2025<\/strong><\/td>Price: 30 April 2026<\/strong><\/td>Percentage increase<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
G.Skill Ripjaws V 2x16GB DDR4-3200MHz<\/td>R3,099<\/td>R6,399<\/td>106.48%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 2x32GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R10,799<\/td>R19,999<\/td>85.19%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
G.Skill Flare X5 2x16GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R5,299<\/td>R9,799<\/td>84.92%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Kingston FURY Beast RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R5,999<\/td>R9,999<\/td>66.68%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Patriot Viper Venom ARGB 1x32GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R4,799<\/td>R8,999<\/td>87.52%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
TeamGroup Expert 2x16GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R5,699<\/td>R10,299<\/td>80.72%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
XPG Lancer Neon RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R5,899<\/td>R8,999<\/td>52.55%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
XPG Lancer Blade 2x32GB DDR5-6000MHz<\/td>R10,799<\/td>R18,999<\/td>75.93%<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The RAM price spikes that South Africans are experiencing have been caused by the global AI arms race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":126478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[5899,2509,1081,1083,26588,26592,26590,26593,26591],"class_list":["post-126463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-g-skill","tag-kingston","tag-patriot","tag-ram","tag-ram-prices","tag-syntech","tag-teamgroup","tag-tech-prices","tag-xpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126463"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126483,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126463\/revisions\/126483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}