DRAM crisis: Raspberry Pi 5 price rises by another $80

After the price of the Raspberry Pi 5 with 2 GB of RAM was only increased in early October, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is now announcing a price increase for the top-end model with 16 GB of RAM. The recommended retail price is rising from $305 to $385, an increase of 26 percent. Though for the time being, that model can still be found cheaper at some retailers like Amazon.

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 with 16 GB of RAM is becoming $40 more expensive. At least the price of the Raspberry Pi 500+ keyboard computer remains unchanged regardless of the RAM configuration. The Raspberry Pi Foundation emphasizes that these price increases are due to the DRAM crisis and the resulting rise in production costs. Diversifying suppliers is no longer enough to avoid a price increase for the variants with 16 GB of RAM, as there are currently hardly any alternative sources for high-density memory chips.

Once the DRAM crisis is over, prices for all Raspberry Pi products are to be lowered again. However, the crisis could drag on for years due to persistently high demand from AI data centers. Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi Foundation recommends that customers check whether models with less RAM could also meet their requirements by optimizing software to reduce RAM usage. The company advises against buying a Raspberry Pi from unofficial sources, as some sellers may not only charge inflated prices but also advertise models as having more RAM than they actually do.