Microsoft is heavily involved in the development of artificial intelligence, and is partly responsible for the exponential rise in DRAM prices.
Unless you've spent the last six months on a desert island, you're bound to have at least heard about the terrible inflation in the DRAM sector since September. In the space of a few weeks, the price of these little chips has doubled, and with it the price of RAM modules. The latter have gone through the roof, and 16 GB DDR5 kits can now cost as much as 64 GB kits in June 2025. Triple-digit inflation is confirmed across the sector, with the most dramatic increases reaching 400% or even 500%. Clearly, this is not the time to invest in upgrading your PC.
Yet this is exactly the time Microsoft has chosen to review its recommendations for gamers. The company has published a whole set of pages called Windows Learning Center. It's not about technical information, but rather simple advice to help lost users make the right choices. Many of the tips relate, for example, to the components a new laptop needs to stay competitive. Elsewhere, it's a question of comparing the various devices capable of running Windows 11, to determine their advantages and disadvantages in your personal case.
Artificial intelligence, which is widely promoted by Microsoft, is responsible for the explosion in DRAM prices.
In principle, these are pretty good tips and ideas in general, especially given the complexity of the computer world for neophytes. There are, however, some recommendations that make you smile. Indeed, when discussing configurations for gamers, Microsoft states: " For most gamers, 16 GB RAM is a practical starting point. Upgrading to 32 GB RAM is useful if you use Discord, a browser or streaming tools alongside your games. The extra memory also offers greater leeway for newer titles, whose memory requirements are constantly increasing ".
Let's face it, it's not an idiotic piece of advice, and indeed, more and more games are imposing 16 GB on their base configuration, so upgrading to 32 GB does indeed give you a bit of breathing space. Problem is, as we said at the start of this article, this is clearly not the time for such an upgrade, unless you're willing to break the bank: 32 GB is at an all-time high! The irony is that Microsoft has a lot to do with this inflation: at the heart of the problem are the gargantuan DRAM demands of artificial intelligence, which Microsoft supports with its own solutions that are no less demanding than the competition.
Update: between the writing of this article and its publication, we were surprised to see Microsoft change its tune. Indeed, the publisher has withdrawn all mention of " 16 GB as a starting point " and " 32 GB to be on the safe side ". The Windows Learning Center documentation no longer details the memory configuration for video game enthusiasts, and our Windows Latest colleagues were unable to obtain any clarification from the American group, despite questions from Mayank Parmar. The latter also points out that this isn't the first time Microsoft has talked about 32 GB for more comfortable gaming.
Last February, for example, Microsoft published - again on the Windows Learning Center - a document to clarify RAM issues on gaming machines: " 16 GB is more than enough for most games. 32 GB is ideal for demanding gamers who run the most resource-hungry titles or use extensive mods ". At the time, Microsoft was still pursuing its strategy of promoting Copilot artificial intelligence on configurations dedicated to video games. This is no longer the case, and the related documents have all been withdrawn. However, this doesn't change the fact that to run Flight Simulator 2024 more or less comfortably, you need 32 GB, and 16 GB is the minimum configuration for the very recent Forza Horizon 6.
