XMG Raises Laptop Prices as DDR5 SO-DIMM Costs Surge

XMG has increased the starting prices of many current XMG and SCHENKER laptops after another rise in component procurement costs. The changes took effect on September 18, with most affected systems increasing by €100 to €150 including VAT. The SCHENKER KEY 18 Pro received the largest listed starting-price increase at €300.

The company says memory remains one of the strongest cost pressures. Its September market update puts representative DDR5 SO-DIMM retail pricing at almost six times the level seen around mid-2025. XMG says its own procurement costs have risen by a comparable proportion, although the published chart itself is based on retail pricing rather than confidential supplier invoices.

XMG built its memory and storage comparison from three widely available mainstream products in each category using their lowest Geizhals prices. It sampled the price level around the middle of each month and averaged the products in each category, using mid-2025 as the baseline. That makes the almost-6× SO-DIMM figure useful evidence of the direction and magnitude of the market move, but it should not be read as a claim that every DDR5 laptop module now costs exactly six times as much.

The same update says desktop DDR5 and SSD prices have also risen substantially. XMG attributes the system-price changes to a broader basket of costs rather than RAM alone, including PCBs, electronic components, CPUs, GPUs, video memory and air freight from Asia.

The useful signal is that higher component costs are now showing up in finished configurable PCs rather than only in memory-market forecasts. XMG is especially transparent because buyers can see RAM, SSD, CPU and GPU option pricing separately, making changes in the bill of materials easier to observe than on fixed-configuration notebooks.

Upgradeable laptops are also directly exposed to SO-DIMM pricing in a way that systems using soldered LPDDR memory are not at retail. That does not make soldered memory cheaper overall, but it means buyers planning a high-capacity upgrade should compare the factory configuration with separately purchased modules rather than assuming an aftermarket upgrade remains the inexpensive route.

XMG says it does not expect component pricing to fall sustainably in the medium term and warns that some CPU, GPU and memory configurations may see longer lead times or temporary shortages. That is the company’s outlook, not proof that every configuration will become unavailable.

For PC buyers, the concrete development is simpler: a European system builder has now passed another round of component-cost increases into retail laptop prices, while its tracked DDR5 SO-DIMM basket sits near six times its mid-2025 baseline. Whether that pressure broadens further across the PC market will depend on supplier contracts, inventory and memory pricing over the coming months.