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[QUOTE="Shamiso, post: 94183, member: 160"]
DDR5 RAM prices in Japan's Akihabara district have hit a wild new level, with one 128GB kit priced at ¥514,800, or roughly $2,872. Akiba PC's latest shop check found that the DDR5-6000 set, made up of two 64GB sticks, had gone way up after a fresh batch hit stores.

Here's where the math gets nasty. The same kit went for ¥316,980 in a prior check. That puts the jump at ¥197,820, or 62.4%. And the older price of ¥59,800 makes it look even worse, as the new tag marks a 760.9% rise in just over a year.

For context, ¥500,000 used to be enough for a gaming rig with an RTX 5090 or at least an RTX 5080. Yet a buyer can burn through that kind of cash on RAM alone. Pretty wild for a part that still needs the rest of a PC to do much.

Regular 64GB kits aren't getting much relief either. A pair of 32GB DDR5-6400 sticks had a low price of ¥139,980, or about $781. DDR5-5600 came in at ¥104,980, near $586. Even DDR5-4800 hit ¥125,800, close to $702, after a ¥11,000 jump.

There's one catch, though. These are shop prices from a small set of stores in Akihabara, not a full look at Japan's RAM market. Stock levels and store deals can shift the numbers quite a bit. And a new batch of parts may not land at the same price as the last one.

Still, the price hikes aren't just a problem for those after huge RAM kits. Several common speeds and sizes have taken a hit, which makes it harder for PC builders to find a fair deal. Anyone shopping for memory in that area has good reason to check more than one store before paying.
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