Minisforum hikes mini PC prices as DRAM and SSD costs climb again

Minisforum is raising prices on most of its mini PC lineup, and the reason is boring but important. DRAM and SSD prices are climbing again. In notices on its UK and EU stores, Minisforum says there has been a significant increase in overall costs and that it has no choice but to apply a slight price increase across the range. The only systems that escape are barebones units and models sold without memory and storage, which tells you exactly where the pain is.

What Minisforum is actually changing

The company’s statement is polite but blunt. Global raw material costs are up, overall manufacturing costs are up, so retail pricing has to follow. Fully configured systems with DDR5 memory and NVMe SSDs are going up. Bare systems and configs without RAM or storage are not affected for now. That lines up with what we are seeing from the memory and NAND vendors. After a relatively buyer friendly couple of years, DRAM and flash are getting more expensive as AI demand soaks up capacity and suppliers push back margins.

Why AI is quietly messing with mini PC pricing

On the surface, a little Minisforum box on your desk has nothing to do with NVIDIA GB200 racks in a hyperscale data center. Underneath, they share the same factories. The DRAM fabs and NAND lines that feed HBM stacks and high end SSDs also feed the DDR5 SODIMMs and NVMe drives that end up in mini PCs. When hyperscalers and GPU vendors sign long term supply deals and reserve huge amounts of capacity, everyone else gets whatever is left, usually at a higher price.

We are already seeing HBM effectively sold out at some vendors and strong guidance from memory makers about higher average selling prices ahead. You do not need a spreadsheet to see where that leads. If you build compact PCs and you buy finished DIMMs and SSDs on the open market, your bill of materials goes up fast.

Why barebones boxes are not going up (yet)

Minisforum explicitly calls out barebones systems as exempt from the increase. That makes sense. A barebones chassis with board and CPU has a lot less exposure to DRAM and NAND pricing swings. PCB, case metal and power bricks are not exactly cheap right now, but they have not spiked the way memory has. Keeping barebones stable also keeps the DIY crowd on side. If you are happy to drop in your own DDR5 and SSD, Minisforum still wants you buying the platform from them.

It also pushes more of the price risk back onto the enthusiast. If you are comfortable hunting for RAM and storage deals, you can dodge some of the squeeze by buying when the market softens, or by reusing parts you already own.

What this means if you are shopping a mini PC

If you were looking at a fully configured Minisforum system, the message is simple. Waiting will probably not make it cheaper. The company has already warned that adjustments are coming, and memory vendors are not exactly hinting at price cuts next quarter. If you want a small box with everything pre installed, it is worth checking current prices and deciding whether paying a little extra later is worth the convenience.

If you are comfortable with a screwdriver, the smarter play is likely to go barebones and supply your own DDR5 and NVMe. You gain control over the exact memory kit and SSD you use, and you are less exposed to sudden system wide price bumps when DRAM or flash move. In a lot of cases you can also reuse parts from an old build and drop the effective cost of the new machine quite a bit.

How big a signal is this for the wider PC market

One niche OEM adjusting prices is not a market crash. Minisforum does, however, sit in a segment that reacts early when component costs change. Small vendors run tighter margins than the big OEMs and cannot hide behind bundles or giant inventory buffers. If they say memory and SSD costs are forcing price changes, you can expect other small form factor brands to feel the same pressure.

Desktop DIY parts still look relatively sane right now. There are decent deals on 32 GB DDR5 kits and 1 TB to 2 TB NVMe drives if you watch sales. The risk is that AI data center build outs, renewed phone demand and normal seasonal PC shipments all collide. If that happens, the bargain era on Gen 4 SSDs and mid range DDR5 could end quickly, and what Minisforum is doing now becomes the new normal across more of the stack.

Why mini PCs feel this harder than big towers

Mini PCs do not have many knobs to turn. The case is as small as it is going to get. The board is custom and dense. The PSU is often an external brick. That leaves CPU choice, RAM, storage and maybe Wi Fi as the main variables. Dropping to a much weaker CPU to save a few pounds makes the product less appealing, so memory and SSDs are the easier lever to pull when you need to keep a margin.

That is why this move matters if you care about small form factor systems. It is a reminder that the tidy little box under the monitor lives and dies on the same component pricing curves as everything else. If you want to keep mini PCs attractive, either you accept slightly higher prices when DRAM is expensive, or you get more hands on and start treating RAM and storage as user supplied consumables.

Should you hold off, or buy now

If you have room in the budget and you want a turn key system, buying before wider price rises hit is not the worst idea. If you are more price sensitive and happy to tinker, stick to barebones and keep an eye on memory and SSD deals instead. The underlying lesson is boring but stable. In a world where AI loads are driving the top of the market, the shock wave will eventually reach the little boxes too. Minisforum just got there first.