this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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Let's pick Oct 2025 as our 'pre RAMpocalypse' time frame.
Data source: pangoly.com
(I removed BestBuy from the visuals because it is an extremely erratic dataset that basically bounces around the average of others, but makes the graph nearly unreadable)
16GB DDR5 Crucial RAM
Oct 2025: ~$50
Jun 2026: ~$275
2TB NVME M.2 Crucial SSD
Oct 2025: ~$140
Jun 2026: ~$300 (if you remove Adorama)
512GB NVME M.2 Kingston SSD
Oct 2025: ~$50
Jun 2026: ~$200
$275 - $50 = $225
$300 - $140 = $160
$225 + $160 = $385
Thus, the 2TB variant has an effective ~$385 upcharge due to the RAMpocalypse.
2TB variant MSRP is $1349, thus it would be ~$964 pre-RAMpocalypse, meaning that the RAMpocalypse % upcharge is ~39.9%
Do the same with the 512GB variant:
$275 - $50 = $225
$200 - $50 = $150
$225 + $150 = $375
$375 effective RAMpocalypse upcharge.
MSRP of 512GB variant is $1050, thus it would be ~$675 pre-RAMpocalypse, % upcharge of ~55.5%
Obviously this methodology is not perfectly correct, but I'd argue its quite reasonable 'napkin math'... you could maybe make a more exhaustive index of all prices of all brands of RAM/SSD in exact performance spec matches to be slightly more accurate, but yeah, roughly, the RAMpocalypse made the Steam Machine, about $380, or 40% to 55% more expensive than it otherwise would have been, depending on 2TB vs 512GB.
Also I guess we are here just assuming Valve is just selling these things basically at cost, neither subsidizing nor gouging the price, in all scenarios, which I am also confident is and always was basically the plan.
Also also, economist brain says:
~50% inflation in less than a year for pretty much an entire segment of the CPI is uh... pretty fucking bad, to use the 'formal' terminology.