If you are putting a computer together this month, the memory is the part that keeps moving. Sellers across the Dhaka computer market told Prothom Alo that popular RAM modules are going for up to Tk 1,000 more than last week, depending on brand and model. Almost nothing else changed: processors, motherboards, SSDs, graphics cards, hard drives and monitors are all roughly where they were.
What RAM costs right now
From the market survey, for Corsair's widely sold Vengeance line: LPX 3200 MHz DDR4 8 GB at Tk 8,200, and LPX 3200 MHz DDR4 16 GB at Tk 14,000. Those are the sticks most budget and mid-range builds in Bangladesh actually use, which is why a Tk 1,000 move is felt immediately.
For context, from the same survey, the parts that did not move: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at Tk 62,000, Core i7 14th-generation at Tk 50,000, Core i5 13th-generation at Tk 19,500; Seagate Barracuda 2 TB at Tk 17,300 and 4 TB at Tk 23,000; Gigabyte RTX 3050 Windforce OC 8 GB at Tk 34,000; TP-Link Archer C20 dual-band router at Tk 1,500.
Why memory and nothing else
The squeeze is not local. Memory is the one PC component that the AI build-out consumes in the same form ordinary buyers need: the data centres going up across China, the United States and the Gulf are absorbing DRAM and high-bandwidth memory by the shipload, and the manufacturers — Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron — have shifted capacity towards the server market where the margins are. Retail RAM is what is left over. That is also why a graphics card can sit still while a memory stick climbs: different production lines, different customers.
The same pressure is visible at the other end of the market. When Google announced Googlebook laptops at $899 this week (our report), the loudest complaint in the reaction was that the memory shortage had pushed the starting price higher than anyone expected.
What to do about it
- If your build needs RAM now, buy the RAM first. It is the part with the upward trend; the processor and the board will still be there next month at the same price.
- Buy one 16 GB stick rather than two 8 GB if the board has four slots. It costs a little more per gigabyte today but leaves you room to add later without throwing anything away.
- Check DDR4 against DDR5 for your board. Prices have converged enough that people are buying the wrong generation; the motherboard decides, not the processor.
- Ignore "price will fall next month". Nobody in the shop knows, and the driver is a global capacity decision made a year ago.
- Second-hand RAM is the one component worth considering used — it has no moving parts and either works or does not, which a five-minute test will tell you.
Prices above are from the Prothom Alo market survey of Dhaka computer shops this week and will vary by shop, warranty terms and quantity.
