Do higher RAM prices make Apple a better option?

IT purchasers must brace themselves for potential price hikes on new equipment as memory price increases percolate across supply chains. That’s a double-whammy cost crisis, of course, as they must also get set for energy price increases as demand rises to serve electricity-hungry artificial intelligence (AI) farms. 

AI also means that even Apple is increasing the amount of memory it puts inside its devices, which is noteworthy. The company has long avoided installing sizable quantities of RAM in its products, preferring to focus on device/software/OS integration and its proprietary unified memory system to deliver performance and efficiency.

What Apple does, others usually follow

The fact that Apple has had to increase RAM capacity in response to the demands of AI is significant because it means PC vendors across the board will need to do so, too. It also means people purchasing PCs will need to ensure that the systems they buy have sufficient memory installed to run AI, as any additional memory needs will add to the overall purchase price.

They’ll also have to account for the additional running cost of increased memory in the computers they deploy. That cost might seem negligible to a lone user, but at a scale of thousands of seats, the cumulative consumption could challenge company sustainability targets, as well as raising energy bills. Those costs scale. 

Apple’s answer to this is to continue to show that its systems deliver more performance per watt than its competitors. In context, you can also arguably point out that any additional memory it might pack into its products is still relatively parsimonious in comparison to competitors. That’s because its systems are inherently capable of doing more with less, which means you need less to do more. That’s a tautology, but an important one to anyone controlling a budget.

Does this matter? 

It looks as if it does. Samsung has signalled a 60% price increase for some kinds of memory, while the prices of high-bandwidth memory modules, such as the DDR used in most decent computers, including Macs, is also moving higher. 

These price increases reflect demand, as AI infrastructure is a greedy, greedy beast and continues to demand more memory, more water, more energy, and more investment capital as the bubble around AI infrastructure rapidly inflates ahead of aninevitable collapse. The result? There isn’t enough memory to go around.

Has it hit hardware prices yet? That’s not yet clear, but some (particularly in the US) are reportedly more exposed to market fluctuation than others. For example, Morgan Stanley recently downgraded most PC stocks to reflect the volatile pricing environment, warning that Dell, HP, Acer, and Asustek might be the most vulnerable to them. 

The analysts did not see Apple as under threat, in part because it is able to pre-order components at scale.

That protection won’t last forever — stockpiles get used up; but it is significant for many enterprise purchasers who must see that even as hundreds of millions of actively used PCs can’t be upgraded to Windows 11, the cost of their replacements continues to rise, and might go higher as additional AI running costs (including added on-device memory demands) come into play. 

Curse or opportunity

I think Apple can continue to argue that its once high-cost machines are becoming more and more affordable all the time, both in terms of bang for the buck, and also in terms of the total cost of ownership over time. The company’s computational performance story matters a great deal in this challenging environment, as does its ability to generate more processing power per watt than others. 

As price and tech pressures hit purchasing decisions, Apple’s long held decision to optimize its hardware seems to be delivering a bigger advantage than ever. That advantage is only made more buoyant by Apple Silicon’s built-in power, performance, and support for on-device AI.

Other things still matter

Plus, of course, even if the AI bubble does burst and a pitchfork-wielding population marches on the AI data centers, Apple also makes the best and most secure computers with the most popular operating systems, which is why employees choose its solutions when given the chance.

Those things that mattered so much before ChatGPT arrived still matter just as much today, even for IT purchasing.

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