Getting a new PC might be harder than normal right now, and it’s not just because of higher prices. Maingear, an excellent custom PC builder, has come up with one way to circumvent the RAM shortage: Bring your own.
On Tuesday, Maingear introduced the BYO RAM program This is its attempt — and likely just the first — to deal with the continuing supply issues for computer components caused by the exorbitant amount of money backing data center build-outs.
The program lets you buy a built-to-order system with RAM that you ship to them. They then install, optimize and test. Customer service will consult with you in advance to verify that the memory you’ve got is appropriate for the system configuration you want.
This really only solves the problem for a minimal number of cases, but the goal is simply to decrease the buying bottleneck where possible. In other words, if you have access to DDR5 memory, you might be able to take advantage, though it does have to be DDR5 memory.
That means, for instance, if you want to use memory from your current PC, the system has to be less than five years old because DDR5 first shipped in 2020. But you can’t assume it’s DDR5 because, even then, many high-end systems were still using DDR4. You probably can’t pull memory from an all-in-one system, either, since many of them have memory soldered to the motherboard. Plus, the DDR5 in an older system may be too slow to get optimal performance from a new system.
Wallace Santos, Maingear co-founder and CEO, told reporters in a briefing earlier in the day that this isn’t a normal shortage. Memory manufacturers aren’t increasing capacity because of long-run concerns about demand. He said that even then, «we’re being told it’s going to take a year and a half until they ramp up their lines.»
SK Hynix, one of the big memory suppliers, forecasted the crunch to last through 2028.
Plus, PC builders don’t get the memory modules directly from the memory manufacturers. RAM first goes to a packager, where it then gets turned into the modules you can plug into the motherboard, and this then extends the timeline from there.
According to Santos, even the packagers are having trouble getting supplies. He explained that, in the past, a bigger company, such as Intel, would step in to help in some way. Now «new players with deeper pockets are stepping into our space and committing to multiyear deals with memory suppliers.» This can lead to, for example, companies shifting out of consumer supply entirely, which is what Micron, another big player in memory, did by closing its Crucial memory brand.
Uncertainty is a huge problem, too. Santos doesn’t know where prices will end up stabilizing, and he’s not sure if they’ll ever come down to where they were prebubble.
On the flip side, if data center financing deals go south (beyond just spooking stockholders), those memory contracts will disappear. This could be a best case scenario for buyers, at least — it will flood the market and prices will soften. If that happens en masse, though, we may have bigger problems than a memory shortage.