Your competition for cheap RAM: Massive swarms of scalper bots

PCWorld reports that scalper bots are making it harder and more expensive to buy RAM, with bots accounting for 91% of traffic at one retailer. DDR5 RAM prices have surged 500% year-over-year, driven by AI data center demand and third-party resellers inflating prices on platforms like Amazon and Newegg. Popular kits such as the G.Skill Flare X5 are being heavily marked up, making PC building significantly more costly for everyday consumers. When an in-demand product gets scarce, the vultures of consumerism descend. Resellers insert themselves between something people want and suppliers, sucking up every possible dollar to be made. So it went with GPUs and webcams and toilet paper in the pandemic, so it goes with RAM in 2026. For at least one retailer, over 90% of the web traffic for RAM listings came from "scalper" bots.