Tech
Buying RAM right now is a mistake, even on Black Friday
Are you enamored with the idea of scoring insane deals and buying new PC components this Black Friday? Now might be a decent time to buy a GPU or CPU, but you should pump the brakes on that hot RAM deal you might have found.
RAM has been pretty affordable for the past few years
When it comes to checking pricing for products on Amazon, there are two tools that I always use: CamelCamelCamel, and Keepa. I always use camelcamelcamel as my primary, as the Chrome extension is actually pretty great. The picture above actually came from camelcamelcamel.
Before joining the How-To Geek team, I spent over six years exclusively writing about deals and sales, and both of these tools were absolutely invaluable to me.
As you can see, RAM prices were basically rock steady for the better part of the past year. In fact, I checked the pricing for the three RAM kits that I’ve purchased in the past year, and all of them were very stable in pricing for the last 12 months, even going back over a year shows stable pricing—until a few months ago.
RAM prices skyrocketed mid-year
The ‘RAM-pocalypse’ is upon us, and it’s now the worst time in recent history to buy computer memory. With the rise of AI and new data centers popping up like Starbucks, we went from an abundance of RAM to a shortage of it.
This shortage caused RAM prices to absolutely skyrocket. For example, in July of this year, I purchased a 64GB DDR4 RAM kit for my server at $126. Today, it costs $292. That’s a 132% price increase in four months. In June of this year, I bought 64GB of DDR5 RAM for $140—a similar kit now goes for $498, a 256% increase.
Even at 50% off, most Black Friday RAM deals aren’t that great
Really, it’s pretty insane to think how much RAM costs right now. With prices as high as they are, it’s worth pointing out that there’s no deal that could be offered this Black Friday that would make RAM affordable again. Even if you could find a kit offered at 50% off, you’d still pay $250 for a kit that I paid $140 for just a few months ago.
Before you make any purchase of RAM, check the price history. Use camelcamelcamel or Keepa to see what the historical price is, and if the “deal” you’re seeing is actually a deal, or if it’s just slightly less of a rip-off.
If you don’t drastically need RAM this Black Friday, wait it out
Here’s the reality: if you don’t need a RAM upgrade, then don’t buy RAM this Black Friday. These insane prices should hopefully start to rebound sometime in the next year or so. It’s worth holding out on RAM if it’s not crucial that you buy it right now.
If it is necessary for you to make the purchase now and not wait, then just make sure you do the price research first. That way you can make sure if these RAM manufacturers are going to charge you out the nose for their memory, you can at least save yourself from being more ripped off by checking price history.
Sadly, there’s really no way around the RAM price increases. Outside buying RAM second-hand on Facebook Marketplace or eBay, which is definitely a viable option, there’s no other option to save right now.
I tried to find ways to help you save on RAM, maybe with a pre-built PC or something similar, but there’s just no reprieve to be found during the RAM-pocalypse right now. So, until prices drop, may your system run smoothly and may Chrome stop eating all of your RAM.
