{"slug": "dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market", "title": "DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market", "summary": "Rising DRAM prices have forced Raspberry Pi and other single-board computer (SBC) vendors to significantly increase costs, with the 16GB Pi 5 now priced at $299.99, making high-memory models unaffordable for most hobbyists. LPDDR chips now account for the majority of board costs, leading to fewer new board launches and pushing hobbyists toward older SBCs and microcontrollers. While Raspberry Pi can rely on its industrial and microcontroller markets, smaller vendors may not survive the ongoing pricing bubble.", "body_md": "DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market\nToday Raspberry Pi announced more price increases for all Pis with LPDDR4 RAM, alongside a 'right-sized' 3GB RAM Pi 4 for $83.75.\nThe price increases bring the 16GB Pi 5 up to $299.99.\nDespite today's date, this is not a joke.\nI published a video going over the state of the hobbyist 'high end SBC' market (4/8/16 GB models in the current generation), which I'll embed below:\nBut if you'd like the tl;dr:\nUnless the DRAM pricing situation changes radically, I think the hobbyist SBC market is dying—or at least on life support. And I don't just mean Raspberry Pis, but all SBC vendors. LPDDR chips now account for the majority of board cost from the vendors I've checked with.\nBesides causing a radical reduction in new boards launched (Radxa seems to be the only vendor that had some cadence last year), the price increases for boards with greater than 4 GB of RAM have put those boards out of the reach of most hobbyists.\nEven mini PCs, which for a time were a great deal, have risen to $250+ for 8 GB models. Used PC are also more expensive, especially with more than 4 GB of RAM.\nI design most of my projects so they can be replicated for less than $100. Learning is easier on cheaper parts you won't fret over too much when you break them. With prices going up, this limits the types of projects I take on.\nI'm working more with older SBCs and microcontrollers now, and I think that's the direction many in the hobbyist space are going.\nMaybe, as Eben Upton says in Raspberry Pi's post,\nmemory prices won’t remain at their current very high level indefinitely; the circumstances in which we find ourselves are challenging, but in the future they will abate.\nBut I'm not sure how long we'll have to wait, or if a hobbyist SBC market will exist by the time the bubble bursts.\nLucky for Raspberry Pi, they have a thriving microcontroller ecosystem and industrial base to keep them going. I fear smaller vendors won't be able to go on like this forever.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market", "canonical_source": "https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market/", "published_at": "2026-04-01 21:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-22 21:39:59.597130+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["hardware", "semiconductor"], "entities": ["Raspberry Pi", "Radxa", "LPDDR4"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/dram-pricing-is-killing-the-hobbyist-sbc-market.jsonld"}}