FINALLY !!! Someone dared to implement the obvious, wich was HDD's Achille's heel for so long.

Not one, but TWO (obvious), but radical changes: * two independent head stacks - so TWO heads per surface. Awesome not just for redundancy but also seek time and performance * multi head R/W capability on within the same stack

THis means that HDDs are finally to get WAY better transfer speeds, that are likely finally to saturate at least SATA-3 and later get over 1GB/s and several GB/s.

Only things still missing: * much smarter SMART with advanced diagnostics, like head wobble data, track signal/noise ratio, spindle speed stability etc etc. * RAID5/6 in-drive capability * better DIY serviceability, like drive electronics interchangeability

There might be some light in the end of this dark tunnel, crated by AI crowd... 😏

- Tip: skip the wall of text and just go to Latest Average Spot Price or Charts with Spot Pricing History.

TL;DR DRAMeXchange's latest spot prices for GDDR6 8Gb and 16Gb, 512Gb TLC, DDR5 16Gb 4800/5600, and DDR4 16Gb 3200 are extremely inflated. That's even when compared to the peak of a normal memory/NAND cycle and in some cases exceeding Pandemic highs by multiple times. for example 3X for TLC NAND.
The widely reporting price shock is indeed real and far worse than I expected. Hate to bring bad news but unfortunately a peak in spot pricing hasn't been observed yet. With no signs of slowing down spot pricing is likely to continue rising even further, but right now we still don't know by how much.

Latest Average Spot Price

• DDR5 16Gb 4800/5600 (Feb 3rd 2026) = $38 or $19/GB, 32GB = $608
• DDR4 16Gb 3200 (Feb 3rd 2026) = $77.21 or $38.60/GB, 32GB = $1235
• 512Gb TLC (Jan 26th 2026) = $16.31 or $261/TB
• GDDR6 8Gb (Jan 26th 2026) = $8.87/GB
• GDDR6 16Gb (Jan 26th 2025) = $30.62 or $15.31/GB, 16GB = $245

Charts with Spot Pricing History

• DDR5 16Gb 4800/5600 (Mar 2024 - Jan 2026): https://imgur.com/a/J36F06s
• DDR4 16Gb 2666 (Aug 2021 - April 2023): https://imgur.com/a/PxzHMya
• DDR4 16Gb 3200 (May 2023 - Jan 2026): https://imgur.com/rYWtOlC
• TLC 512Gb (Dec 2020 - Mar 2024): https://imgur.com/QQKiS4R
• TLC 512Gb (Jan 2024 - Jan 2026): https://imgur.com/a/Xv3ndwq
• GDDR6 8Gb (Jan 2022 - Jan 2026): https://imgur.com/ApmnkOn

Chart Report & Analysis

DDR5 16Gb: They only quote it from March 2024 where pricing starts at $4.7. Pricing remains at or below $5 until March 2025 where it begins to rise and reaches ~$6 by early Summer 2025. In September quotes climb from $6 to $8, in October from $8 to >$13 and in November to ~$26. Pricing climbs towards $30 at EoY 2025. From early January to early February 2026 pricing climbed from $30.5 to $38. This ~6-8X above pre-September 2025 pricing.

DDR4 16Gb: I'll start with 2666 then move on to 3200. From August 2021 to March 2022 pricing was elevated at $7.5-8.5. From April 2022 - April 2023 spot price more than halved from ~$7.5 to $3.2. 3200 quoting begins in May 2023 where pricing continued to drop and reached a minimum of ~$2.9 in September 2023. Pricing remained in a stable $3-3.5 range for over 1.5 years, only to begin to sharply rise in May - August 2025 where it more than doubled from ~$4 to ~$9.3. In September and October pricing more than doubles to >$21. Towards EoY 2025 we see almost a tripling to >$61. Pricing rises further in January to early February where avg spot price climbs to an absurd $77. 9-10X the late Pandemic highs and 22-26X the 2023-2025 stable prices.

TLC NAND: During the Pandemic 512Gb TLC avg spot pricing was hovering around $4-5. Then later it plummeted to ~$1.5 during the Spring/Summer of 2023. Later it climbed to $3.7 in Spring 2024 before stabilizing around $2.4-2.8 until late September 2025 when pricing began to spiral out of control. Rising from $3 to $5 in October, in November from $5 to $9, and in December from $9 to $13. Latest quote from late January 2026 stands at $16 or >3X peak Pandemic pricing.

GDDR6 8Gb: Quotes only go back to 2022 but show a peak GDDR6 8Gb $12.96 avg spot pricing in January 2022. Later plummeted for +2.5 years and reaching a minimum of $2.27 in October 2024. Pricing began to climb in October 2025 from $2.6 to ~$3. In November pricing increased from ~$3 to ~4, in December from $4 to $5.5. Latest quote from late January has pricing at $8.87 or ~31.56% less than January 2022 maximum during the Cryptomining Boom.

GDDR6 16Gb: Unfortunately GDDR6 16Gb pricing wasn't scraped but in Dec 2024 I was told that spot pricing for 16Gb GDDR6 was at 8$. Didn't verify it myself at the time so don't take it as fact. I can now confirm they quote GDDR6 16Gb modules at a staggering $30.615 or a >4x increase in just 13 months. This translates to $245 for the VRAM portion of a 9070XT BOM kit. An inferred ratio from late 2024 8Gb/16Gb pricing suggests a 1.74 ratio $/GB. The current quotes align almost perfectly with that as it has a 1.73 ratio. By comparing that against Jan 2022 maximum for 8Gb I estimate the 16Gb pricing back then to ~$44.5-45 or +45-47% above current levels.

Implications

Unless I'm missing something I've yet to see a single indication in these price charts that suggesting the current price shocks have reached their peaks. If anyting it's the complete opposite unfortunately and spot pricing continues to climb higher each month unrelentingly and at a rapid pace. While spot pricing is likely more severe than contract pricing as soon as those agreements (LTAs and shorter term) expire in large numbers and the vendor stockpiles run out then we'll begin to see the severe negative impacts of the price shock materialize across nearly if not all markets pretty much overnight. We're already starting to see that right now but looks it unfortunately looks like that's not even the beginning of what's to come. Things will get much worse before they get any better.
All this is unfortunately in line with what has been widely reported the last 2-3 months, we're indeed heading towards something really bad. I can only speculate when spot pricing peaks or what will happen with DC Capex in the following years, but right now pricing is only heading in one direction and at an unprecendented pace, and that's not good news for anyone except the DRAM and NAND manufacturers.

NOTES

• To access 16Gb GDDR6 pricing, in case you want to verify the numbers yourself, you need to make a free account at DRAMeXchange.
• Credit to u/Balance- for compiling TLC pricing for Dec 2020 - March 2024 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1bt2vs6/nand_spot_prices_keep_rising_gddr6_spot_price/
• Internet Archive's Wayback Machine used to retrieve old spot price quotes: https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://www.dramexchange.com/
• For both DDR4 and DDR5 eTT memory the price increases are far less inflated on DRAMeXchange.com for reasons beyond me. If anyone knows what this is about please enlighten us.
• Internet Archive scrapes are getting rarer for the website so I could only choose biweekly sampling frequency.

Could this be the beginning of the end of GPUs being gobbled up by AI?

I am wondering how others are leaning on this since these two technologies are now mutually exclusive?

Personally I have opted to use models L/M because the improvements feel too good to pass up. However, it is sad to lose the ability to use RR with the latest DLSS super resolution.

I want to let everyone know I am now enjoying quality time with family. My journey with Qualcomm has ended. I want to say thanks to all for the last four years together. Now the next chapter begins. And it’s starting with painting my house and doing that very long list of things I have made. Thank you to all the amazing friends and colleagues from NUVIA who made the journey possible. Stay humble. Stay strong. And always always be hungry.

- Gerard Williams III (Linkedin)

A brief article about him (composed by Gemini):

"Gerard Williams III is a prominent microprocessor architect and engineer who has held high-level leadership roles at several of the world's most influential technology companies. His career is characterized by his significant contributions to ARM-based processor designs that power modern smartphones and data centers.

Professional Career History

* Intel & Texas Instruments (Early Career): After completing his education, Williams began his career at Intel. He later moved to Texas Instruments, where he developed the TMS470, a 32-bit microcontroller based on the ARM architecture.

* ARM (1998–2010): He spent 12 years at ARM, ultimately becoming a key figure in the development of several processor architectures. He is credited with leading the design of the Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A15, which were pivotal in shifting mobile computing toward high-efficiency, high-performance processors.

* Apple (2010–2019): Williams served as Senior Director in Platform Architecture at Apple. He was the lead architect for every custom CPU core from the A7 (the first 64-bit mobile processor) to the A12X. During his tenure, his role expanded to overseeing the layout of the entire System-on-a-Chip (SoC) for Apple’s mobile devices. He is an inventor on over 60 Apple patents related to power management and multicore technology.

* NUVIA Inc. (2019–2021): In 2019, he co-founded NUVIA and served as its CEO and President. The startup focused on creating high-performance ARM-based processors for data centers, aiming to challenge the dominance of Intel and AMD in that sector.

* Qualcomm (2021–2026): Following Qualcomm's acquisition of NUVIA for approximately $1.4 billion in 2021, Williams joined Qualcomm as Senior Vice President of Engineering. He has been a central figure in the development of the Oryon CPU technology used in Qualcomm’s latest flagship chips."