If you are planning to buy some new RAM for your PC or as a gift for someone else’s PC this holiday season, it won’t take long to realize that prices have completely exited the realm of reality.
The shortage is driving up prices to unprecedented extremes, forcing many PC builders and gamers out of their favorite hobby. I’m here to offer some workarounds that won’t have you spending obscene amounts of money on a DDR5 RAM kit, just in time for Christmas.
Make peace with slower, plainer RAM kits
Now is not the time to get fancy with your DDR5 RAM choice. When buying memory for a desktop PC, you generally have a lot of choices. Some RAM kits have RGB lighting and stylized heat spreaders, while others are basically just a PCB with some modules attached. Then there are also timings and speeds to consider, especially in a high-end build.
Although this shouldn’t be treated as a rule, I am generally seeing lower prices for those less flashy RAM kits that don’t have as high a frequency. Makes sense.
For example, Team Group’s Vulcan DDR5-5200 32GB RAM kit without RGB currently costs about $269.99 at Newegg. Corsair’s Vengeance 16GB DDR5-5200 kit with RGB bumps up to about $219.99. To put the RAM pricing craze into perspective, these prices changed twice as I was writing this article.
Normally, I’d recommend buying faster RAM with tighter timings. But in this current market, I recommend focusing more on capacity than speed.
Watch out for bundled RAM at a low price
Whether you need the motherboard or not, finding a bundled RAM deal is a great way to not overpay. You can always sell or give away the motherboard to a friend.
Unfortunately, these bundles have mostly disappeared, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be more that pop up in the near future. Your best bet is to keep an eye on Newegg, as it was the retailer offering the cheapest deals.
Find a great deal on a pre-built or laptop
Once the systems that were put together before the current RAM price spike sell out, prices will almost certainly rise — Lenovo, Dell, and HP have signaled that they will likely raise PC prices in the near future, as have CyberPowerPC and Maingear — but you might still be able to snag one at a great price.
This option doesn’t do much for those who only need some new memory for their PC, but those hoping to put together an entire system could have good luck.
A great example I found at the time of writing is the discounted ASUS ROG G700 available for a discounted $799.99 ($400 off the regular price) at Best Buy. It has an Intel Core Ultra 5 225F CPU, NVIDIA RTX 5060 GPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD.
If you’d rather stick with AMD, iBuyPower’s Slate Mesh pre-built that I reviewed is discounted at Best Buy. It has a Ryzen 7 8700F CPU, RTX 5070 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD, all for just $1,499.99.
Plan a build using DDR4 RAM instead of DDR5
The current memory squeeze is mainly affecting DDR5 RAM prices; it’s the stuff (alongside HBM) that is most coveted for use in AI datacenters.
That leaves older DDR4 RAM prices (for now) at a much more reasonable level. That could change as PC builders gobble it up and cause another new squeeze, but for now, you can reliably get a pretty nice kit of 2x8GB DDR4 RAM for around $100.
Of course, you’ll have to ensure that the PC the RAM is going into is compatible with DDR4, and you’ll also want to ensure that the PC’s owner is comfortable taking a slight performance hit.
DDR5 RAM is indeed an upgrade over DDR4, but at the current DDR5 prices, it should be a lot easier to reconcile with the older standard.
Wait for prices to return to normal
If all else fails, there’s really nothing to do but wait for DDR5 RAM prices to return to normal. How long that takes is anyone’s guess. The theorized AI bubble could pop, sending RAM prices crashing back down to earth, but then again, it might only ramp up its demands for DRAM.
The three major RAM makers in the world — Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron — could also ramp up DRAM production faster than expected, loosening the squeeze, but that will take years to realize due to the time it takes to get a fabrication plant up and running.
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