Valve describes just how brutal RAM negotiations are in 2026

7 hours ago by Tony Bark to c/technology

Valve, like other companies, is stuck with take-it-or-leave it prices.

Valve’s Steam Machine finally has a price: a whopping $1,049 for the 512GB configuration or $1,349 for the 2TB version. And those are without bundled controllers, which drive up the cost more.

The prices are so high in part because Valve isn’t subsidizing the hardware, and the company has already indicated that the component crisis forced it to reconsider its initial pricing plans. In an interview with the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus, Valve engineers discussed the reality of sourcing RAM in 2026, with take-it-or-leave-it prices as memory and other components remain in short supply, from only a few vendors like Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix.

[...]

Valve, of course, isn’t the only company in a bind over memory shortages, as the crunch is forcing many hardware makers to make significant pricing changes. Even Apple CEO Tim Cook is warning of incoming price hikes for iPhones, Macs, and other devices. And the RAM crunch isn’t projected to get better anytime soon.

load all comments
nocturne 97 points 7 hours ago

I bought a PNY 2tb drive to upgrade my Steam Deck in August of 2025, it was $95 (USD). Today the 1tb version is $165, 2tb is $290.

path: 0 24387806, hotness: undefined, score: 97, children: 5
hdsrob 21 points 5 hours ago

We buy a decent amount of half TB SSD drives to add to desktop PCs that we sell to customers.

Samsung EVO drives have gone from $47 to $285 in the last year.

path: 0 24387806 24389209, hotness: undefined, score: 21, children: 2
nocturne 6 points 5 hours ago

While I was looking today I noticed Samsung drives have jumped way more than PNY have.

The PNY 512gb drives were $114, while like you said, Samsung is $285!

path: 0 24387806 24389209 24389240, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1
hdsrob 7 points 5 hours ago

Even worse is that I used to be able to get Crucial drives for less than Samsung, and I trust them way more. The Samsung ones are fine, but we've never lost a single Crucial SSD in 14 years.

I'll take a look at the PNY ones. We actually can use 256gb, since these are just backup drives that get a data dump every 5 minutes, so that may save some $.

path: 0 24387806 24389209 24389240 24389465, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0
technology
technology

@lemmy.world

login for more options
85657
20002
16397

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


go to feed...