Raspberry Pi 5 with 16 GB prices hiked to over 400 €

The price increase also affects the 16-GB versions of the Compute Module 5, for which the price has risen from 145 to 319 €. These updated figures are now also listed in the product description on the official Compute Module 5 documentation page, though in U.S. dollars. This adjustment follows a smaller price increase on October 1, when the 2-GB versions of both the Raspberry Pi 4 and the Raspberry Pi 5 rose by $12.50. The current increase for the 16-GB model is significantly steeper than the adjustments made in October.

Reasons for the Price Fluctuations

The company attributes the price increase to a shortage of alternative supply chains for 16-GB DRAM. This specific memory shortage has been exacerbated by a more general, ongoing shortage of electronic components. In response to these costs, users are advised to assess their actual memory needs to avoid paying for unnecessary capacity. Suggested alternatives include using lower-density memory variants or older Raspberry Pi hardware. In addition, developers are encouraged to optimize the memory efficiency of their applications to reduce their reliance on high-capacity RAM.

This is yet another casualty of the greed of companies like Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung, as well as OpenA—most notably, Sam Altman recently drew criticism for questioning whether all PC users really need that much RAM. Sam Altman is one of the biggest drivers of RAM prices, as he caused panic and ultimately led to the price hikes. We advise users to boycott ChatGPT if RAM is important to you and you want to make a statement. We canceled our subscriptions months ago and stopped using OpenAI products.