Having written about games and hardware for over a decade, believe me when I say an even slightly candid interview is a rare treat. As such, Kyle Hansen’s live-streamed, down-to-earth chat with memory manufacturer Patriot’s marketing manager Shannon Robb about all things system memory was a particular delight during CES 2026.
As entertaining as Robb and Hansen’s well-established rapport is, the full 40-minute interview is also eye-opening. For a start, while we already know AI is a big reason why we’re experiencing a supply crisis, Robb eloquently communicates the sheer scale of the industry’s hunger for memory. He puts it in stark terms for Hansen, “The AI companies bought, like, 40% of the wafer production. We’re not even talking finished goods, like, packages—not even chips. They’re just wafers.”
And what’s even wilder is that a lot of that stock may not even be in active use, instead hoarded in storage as the industry struggles to find sufficient power to fit out functional data centers. Robb later adds that companies like Patriot aren’t the reason for the sky-high RAM prices consumers are seeing, echoing similar comments recently made by Micron. He quips, “Trust me, we’re not laughing our way to the bank with that because we’ve got to pay to get these parts.”
He also says, “We literally just have to get what we can get. Make it work, and obviously the market price—because [of how] supply and demand works—that goes up and we have to pay it,” before going on to later elaborate, “The key driver of price right now is the IC components, which we can’t do nothing with.”
To be clear, Patriot is a module manufacturer in the memory space, not a chip manufacturer. There are precious few of those, which is one of the reasons prices are spiking. The likes of Samsung, Micron, and key Patriot supplier SK Hynix are responsible for making most of the actual integrated circuits (ICs) that go into the market’s memory modules.
But in such a challenging landscape, Patriot has no plans to make like Micron and pivot away from the consumer memory market and focus on serving the data center community. Robb offers, “The market is eventually going to correct. It’s just a matter of when. And the fact is we’re here to stay. We’ve been here, Patriot, we’re on our 41st year.”
That said, Robb shares that he doesn’t believe we’ve yet seen memory prices peak. As for when we may finally see slightly more sensible RAM prices, he says, “As a company I’ll say, ‘Your guess is about as good as ours’. [Personally], I’ve been following it and it’s been rough because originally I thought, you know, ‘hey, maybe first half 2026 we might see it,’ but then you look at some of the statements by like SK [hynix] and whatnot where they’re like, ‘we’re not going to increase capacity. We’re not going to,’ because they don’t want to be left holding the bag when this eventually pops.”
So, with even the big memory makers grappling with an expensive state of affairs, what’s a PC gamer to do? Robb actually has some advice. When it comes to memory upgrades, he does offer a familiar line: “If you’re going to buy memory, now might be a good time. I can’t say 100%, but [pricing] looks like it’s going to continue to go up for a bit.”
However, he then follows this up with a more level-headed observation: “It’s just like GPUs; If GPUs are going crazy, if [your current hardware] still plays your games, don’t upgrade till you need to. Same thing with memory.”
Hansen himself even quips, “No one needs a 5090!”
(Image credit: Future)
Robb also observes, “There’s so many people that could buy a Jedec stick, put it in, and have the same performance that they have now because they never even enable XMP,” before later returning to his most salient point, “Get a kit that makes sense.”
It’s simple, but advice that I think bears repeating. Rather than going for the top-of-the-line sticks bound to cost a frankly eye-watering amount right now, it’s important to take stock of what you actually need. For instance, while I enjoy hiding in a bush in Arc Raiders from time to time, I’m much more likely to be shuffling decks and selecting dialogue options in what are arguably not the most demanding releases. If you’re anything like me, then chances are you can hold off on that pricey upgrade.
(Image credit: Remitski via Getty Images)
Robb elaborates, “I [say], ‘Hey, focus on what makes sense.’ Because the thing is, if you save on that crazy [memory] kit, who knows? You can go another tier up on your GPU or CPU or, even better, motherboard, cooling, maybe more—maybe another terabyte of storage so you can fit more games, not sit there and swap them out all the time.”
This is all well and good advice, but components beyond RAM, like power supplies and CPU coolers, may also see price increases due to raw material prices surging on top of everything else. Bottom line, if your rig ain’t broke, you can afford to hold off on upgrading any time soon.
