⚡ Memory crunch: 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 5 prices rise by $12.50

Eben Upton announced on the official blog that from 1 October 2026, the 2GB variants of the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 increase by $12.50, moving to $67.50 and $77.50 respectively. The 1GB versions of both boards and the 2GB Compute Module 4/5 models stay unchanged. The cause has been the same for two years: the cost of the on-board LPDDR memory keeps climbing.

Context: DRAM prices, amplified by the industrial land-grab for the HBM memory used in AI accelerators, are hitting every single-board computer maker. Back in April, Raspberry Pi had already raised higher-density variants while holding the 1GB and 2GB prices — a restraint Upton now calls "unsustainable". The company, which already struggled to contain prices during the 2021-2023 crisis, repeats that the situation "won't last forever" and promises to reverse the increases when memory prices fall.

The post also carries unusual advice from a manufacturer: check you are not paying for headroom you do not need, consider older models (Pi 3B, 3A+, 3B+) if performance allows, and buy from an Approved Reseller, whose prices are capped by Raspberry Pi's published maxima — while unauthorised vendors inflate prices and sometimes ship questionable products.

For makers and industry alike the message is clear: in a stressed memory market, RAM density has become the cost variable to manage, and small configurations are back as a deliberate engineering choice. Source: Raspberry Pi.