PC Gamers Are Dumpster Diving For RAM Because Prices Keep Skyrocketing

PC parts, in particular memory, have skyrocketed in price over the last few months, thanks largely to AI companies rushing to build massive datacenters. But at least a few people are skipping the store and diving into their local garbage dump to find PC parts, including one person who found a few hundred dollars’ worth of RAM in the trash.

As spotted by PC Gamer, Reddit user Ringosbigfuckingnose (lol) shared a few images of their most recent haul after scavenging through their local dump. They claim to have found 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, worth an estimated $500 if bought new. Pretty damn good considering all they had to do was scrounge through some junk. The user also says they found a 10th Gen Intel i7 CPU and a solid Asus motherboard.

“I check my local dump pretty regularly for older (486/early Pentium era) hardware, but every now and again ill find a busted up [all-in-one] desktop I can get a bit of DDR4 to upgrade my laptop with or something like that,” said Ringosbigfuckingnose. The user said the new PC parts will provide a “major upgrade” to their current RIG.

In the replies, other Reddit users started sharing stories of PC parts and computer junk they had found in the dump, and if this sounds too hard to believe, well, I’ll throw this in: Last year, I found a full gaming PC tossed into a shared dumpster. It contained a 3060ti GPU and 32GB of RAM, plus an ugly neon case and some other parts that barely looked touched. Was quite a score. Of course, please be careful if you decide to go dumpster diving for PC parts. Laws vary from place to place, not all dumps are open to the public, and jumping into a private dumpster on someone else’s property is a big no-no. So don’t do that.

As to why people are even resorting to checking the dump for PC parts, things are getting bad out there. Over the last few months, PC gaming and memory have become more expensive. This is largely thanks to AI hyperscalers and tech giants gobbling up PC parts to build datacenters; it’s becoming quite pricey and challenging for your average person to buy PC RAM, graphics cards, or even an SSD for a console. Even the prices on prebuilt PCs from companies like HP, Dell, and Asus will increase by 15 to 20 percent, according to PC World. It’s very likely that this will start causing problems for console makers, too. So if you see gamers roving your local dump, now you know why.