The rig bill index

Playing games keeps
getting more expensive.

A 1440p gaming PC, past 12 months

+0%

The same build went from 1.350 to 1.745. You did not get a better PC. You got the same one, later.

mid-2025 → now

Curated index. Baseline = mid-2025 street low, current = July 2026 street price, sourced from the trackers linked below. Last updated July 2026.

Every line only goes up.

32 GB DDR5

Driver · The one everyone feels

€80€355

16 GB DDR4

Old memory, new price

€35€89

1 TB NVMe SSD

NAND caught the same cold

€55€95

GeForce RTX 5080

Still above its own MSRP

€999€1.249

GeForce RTX 5070

Mid-range, premium price

€549€629

Why

AI ate the memory. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron shifted wafer capacity to high-bandwidth memory for AI accelerators, so DRAM and NAND for the rest of us went scarce. A 32 GB DDR5 kit that was around €80 in mid-2025 now runs about €355. GPUs, motherboards and SSDs all carry the same tax. Analysts do not expect real relief before 2028.

The Walter hardware index

€0

Every line above climbs. This one does not move, and never will. Walter runs the games on its own hardware and streams them to the screen you already own.

flat. forever.