The RAM memory market it’s gibberish. The voracity of the data centers has caused energy companies to rethink your renewable goals and? RAM memory increases meteorically in price. This short term is so attractive that Micron, one of the three RAM giants, recently announced that killed its branch of Crucial consumption. And, king dead, king in place: leaks suggest that Asus would be considering its arrival in the RAM market for 2016.
It’s not going to be easy at all.
In short. The middle Sakhtafzarmag is the one that has sprung the hare: Asus would enter the DRAM market over the next few months. The medium now filter previously information about new processors from AMD and Intel so, although we are talking about a rumor, it is not a medium that comes out of nowhere. At a time when reports point to a RAM shortage until the end of 2027it is not uncommon for other players in the PC market to become interested.
It makes sense. And Asus is one of the greats. Your income surpass 18,000 million dollars annually and is present as one of the largest PC hardware manufacturers. Apart from its motherboards and GPU, Asus sells complete desktop and laptop computers (for gaming and office automation) and consoles (there’s the recent Asus ROG Xbox Ally). The RAM segment is one that I had not entered, but the way of doing it has other precedents: Corsair.
As I say, Asus starting to sell RAM memory makes sense if we take into account that Crucial, one of the most powerful brands in the consumer segment, has ceased to exist. Crucial was a Micron brand focused on the user: if you wanted RAM, you could buy one from Crucial and mount it on your PC, but with this rise of AI, Micron has seen that the mine is in the data centers. Your explanation is that it is a movement to “improve supply to strategic customers.” The reality is that it is a chore for all PC users.
Corsair style. If you have built a PC, it is easy that you have opted for Corsair RAM memories. This brand has monitors, boxes or power supplies, but also memories. However, it is not a memory manufacturer: is an assembler. What Corsair does is design its own PCB, stability systems and heatsinks, and then to that PCB solder the RAM modules from manufacturers such as Samsumg, SK Hynix or Micron.
three paths. Entering a new segment is not easy, but Asus has three paths:
- Be a assembler. Buy memories from large manufacturers and integrate them into your own PCBs. This is what it does, for example, with its graphics cards (Nvidia chip, but its own PCB and dissipation system).
- ‘Pass’ from big manufacturers that are having difficulties supplying data centers and opting for other emerging ones. For example, the Chinese company CXMT, which has recently achieved validate DDR5 memory modules (and which is on the US blacklist). It would be a win-win for both: Asus validates this Chinese company in the international market and CXMT gets a high-profile international partner.
- The third is the most risky: Become a memory manufacturer. Asus has the financial resources, but not the experience to do it. It would be the best to create a more controlled product, but in the end it means facing a greater risk.
wasp nest. As we said from the beginning, the arrival of Asus in the RAM memory segment is a rumor that arrives just when RAM supply chain is broken. It is something that affects us as consumers because we see exorbitant prices, but ‘Big Tech’ also has to pay more for RAM, there is a lot of speculation about the price of machines like Steam Machine that will be launched right in this price hurricane (some RAM modules are more expensive than any console) and even memory manufacturers they may face difficulties in their products, such as Samsung.
The arrival of another assembler does not change the balance of power that the big three – Samsung, Hynix and Micron – have since Asus would buy from them, but if it associates with Chinese companies, things change, and a giant like Asus will be lat the gateway of a CXMT or Fujiuan Jinhua would add pressure to the current oligopolistic system.
Decongestion? Difficult. Now, just because a new player enters this playing field does not mean that prices will drop immediately. Everything will depend on how they enter, but if they assemble memories from the three most established manufacturers, there will still be no decongestion in the market because they will be more likely to distribute the same finite product. If they enter through a Chinese manufacturer, the situation could be alleviated as long as the stock is not broken.
In any case, if they are really going to make some move for 2026, it wouldn’t take long for us to have official news – and CES is just around the corner.
We have contacted Asus, we will update when we hear back.
Images | Hector Reyes
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