Costco is taking memory out of its showcase PCs, according to multiple reports from Reddit. As the price of DRAM rockets skyward, it looks as though Costco is trying to curb theft.
Reddit user accent2012 shared pictures of a Costco store’s prebuilt PC alley, where all showcased units had their RAM modules removed. Other commenters have confirmed this situation at other locations, adding that there were multiple reported incidents of RAM theft, which prompted this reaction from the retail giant. One such case was allegedly recorded by a security camera.
This isn’t surprising considering the way RAM has shot up in price lately, due to AI demand squeezing the supply chain. Everything related to memory has become expensive nowadays, from DDR4 prices to GPU costs. Furthermore, unlike graphics cards, which are often bulky and thus hard to hide, a $700+ memory kit can fit in a pocket. Memory can also be quickly and easily removed from a demo system.
But RAM isn’t alone in this situation; the same approach was implemented previously when some stores were facing graphics card thefts. There too, the GPUs were kept secure in back storage, and only brought out and installed when a customer came to purchase. Now we have a double whammy where both graphics cards and RAM have been removed – you can see an example in the picture below, where the display PC lacks both its graphics card and RAM.
While it’s common for retailers to keep high-value items in secure locations until they are sold, internal computer hardware has generally remained on display, until now. However, the days of having DDR5 kits and RTX 5090 cards within arm’s reach may be over.
For regular customers, this shouldn’t be that big of a deal, as long as the config card on display carries enough detail about the system. In today’s case, the Redditor couldn’t find enough details about the RAM, only that it was a 32GB kit. That said, the machine was listed at $899 with an RTX 5060, which isn’t bad considering that the cheapest 32GB kit alone would account for a third of that value. Slice off another third for the RTX 5060, and you are left with less than $300 for the rest of the system. That’s not a terrible deal in the current climate.
