AI Boom Triggers Memory Crisis: Black Friday May Be Last Chance for Affordable PC Components

'I don't see any relief in sight': Black Friday may be your last chance for PC deals, experts warn

AI is causing a DRAM apocalypse and it's affecting the whole PC market this holiday season. This year, Black Friday tech shoppers should heed one important message: Don't wait, buy now. Why? Because certain components are skyrocketing in price -- and it's expected to get even worse. DRAM prices, for example, have doubled in little more than a month. AI hyperscalers have snapped up whatever they can buy. As OpenAI and its rivals throw billions of dollars at hardware makers, commodity chip vendors are prioritizing them over consumers. That means fewer components for you. And have you heard about tariffs? Intel has already told analysts that it's de-prioritizing its low-end, cheap PC microprocessors and predicting shortages in 2026. DRAM? Forget about it: DDR4 memory is being phased out, and DDR5 price trends are almost going vertical. SSDs are less affected, but still under pressure. Same for GPUs. Weirdly, laptop buyers might see better deals than normal, if only because vendors want to offload inventory. Black Friday, indeed. So what can you do? Each year, PCWorld digs through Black Friday tech deals, with an eye towards bringing you the best tech deals on laptops, Chromebooks, SSDs and storage, components, monitors, and more. This year, we wanted to know where you could expect savings, and where you might have to squint hard to find a good deal. Some companies were happy to go on the record. Most weren't, or declined to comment. Because they're still trying to figure out what to offer. "Black Friday" obviously isn't just a day. It's a season. How to shop Black Friday like a pro PCWorld.com is publishing deal roundups for all your favorite components. But before even talking about where you'll be able to find deals, there are two Black Friday shopping strategies that you'll want to know for 2025: the power of bundles, and of buying used. Bundles: In years past, you may have seen an e-tailer toss you a free gift card for buying something. In 2025, look for this strategy to reach another level. Ryan Marinelli, the principal technical specialist for PCPartPicker.com, said that he's already seen a motherboard, 32GB of RAM, and a Steam card bundled together: a hard-to-find, expensive component bundled with something more easily accessible. Software and gift cards are always available, and they might be used more frequently during the 2025 holiday season. Used: You're probably familiar with eBay and possibly Amazon's Renewed program. But Amanda Stefan, the chief executive of used-component marketplace Jawa.gg, told PCWorld.com: "Ever since the word 'tariff' was uttered, our business has tripled year over year." "Typically, you'll save 20 to 40 percent off of buying something new," Stefan added. (Read more in our Jawa.gg profile.) Unfortunately, retailers have begun hiking prices in September and October, only to then drop them in November and December to create "sales." The main culprits have been tablets and phones, according to a study performed by KnownHost throughout 2023 and 2024. Laptops, fortunately, weren't as susceptible. Still, retailers and vendors are hiking more prices early to create the illusion of a sale during Black Friday, from 16 products out of the 60 KnownHost tracked in 2023, to 19 out of 60 in 2024. The good news? More lowered their prices for Black Friday, from 5 to 22 across 2023 to 2024. We asked Amazon, Newegg, and Best Buy for comment. All declined. Laptops and Chromebooks: Yes, deals are a possibility The word of the year for 2025 has been "tariff." Though tariffs roiled the laptop market in March and April, President Trump seems to have backed off a trade war that few welcomed. On Nov. 10, Trump met Chinese president Xi Jinping, who agreed to reduce exports of chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl, the rationale that Trump has used to levy tariffs against China. However, Trump's powers to apply tariffs -- under debate in the Supreme Court -- might still remain, but with limitations. All that means is, well, who knows? PC and component makers did everything they could to avoid tariffs, drop-shipping them to other countries, migrating production facilities, and selling systems that had already cleared U.S. customs. Given that retailers and e-tailers aren't disclosing which systems have been tariffed, there's no point in trying to play detective as to which laptops and PCs will be hurt by tariffs -- just look for the best prices. The problem is that component shortages are biting hard, and consumers might not be aware of how hard. "I think if you're considering a PC, I'd move [quickly] if you find the deals," said Ryan Marinelli, a principal technical specialist for PCPartPicker. "And I wouldn't wait to see whether on Black Friday there is going to be the best deal." "If you have the money and you're ready, I I would purchase the system instead of waiting and holding out to save $10 because you never know what it's going to be tomorrow, especially with RAM and storage," Marinelli said. With that said, analysts are making some early guesses about where laptop and Chromebook deals could arrive. "It's important to note that different vendors will be impacted at different rates based on their scale," Tom Mainelli, who heads IDC's Device and Consumer Research Group, said in an email. "For example, PC vendors such as Dell and Lenovo should be able to achieve better pricing even in a constrained market than some of their competitors, since they also purchase large volumes of these components for their infrastructure businesses. Similarly, Apple -- which purchases huge volumes across its Mac, iPad, and iPhone lines -- should enjoy better pricing than most." There are a few forces at work: First, the holidays are the time-honored opportunity to clear out older inventory. IDC analyst Ryan Reith, the group vice president with IDC's Device Trackers, had said in October that vendors are going to have to decide between refreshing a PC lineup with components that could run the risk of tariffs, and holding on to outdated inventory. "The supply side of the PC industry is doing its best to navigate the unknowns as no one wants to sit on their heels and potentially miss an opportunity, but at the same time it is very risky carrying inventory which is a possibility given the strong first half sell-in," Reith wrote. "Price increases will likely be dispersed over time and geography depending on vendor strategy which can potentially lead to some attractive promotions as a way to clear inventory backups," Reith added. But Mainelli warned that shoppers might see better deals at higher price points, and not just budget PCs being slashed to the bone. "I'd suggest that price increases won't be universal across vendors," Mainelli said. "It is also worth noting that price increases (or less dramatic sale prices) are more likely to appear at the low- and mid-range PC price points than the premium-priced categories, where all vendors have more potential margin to absorb the higher bill of materials cost." In part, that's because Intel has said publicly that it's willing to sacrifice a bit of its low-end PC processor sales in favor of higher-margin server parts. Simple economics says that will help push prices higher. "Intel is prioritizing server chips and mobile over desktop," said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research, in an email. "This will not have a significant impact on the holiday season, but OEMs will push more AMD and possibly Qualcomm [PCs]." It might not affect pricing or holiday sales, but PC vendors are also worrying about how much you'll be willing to buy this holiday. The National Retail Federation's 2025 survey found that consumers plan to spend $628 on holiday gifts this year, down from $641 in 2024. About 22 percent of those surveyed are asking for electronics. But that survey was taken in October, before the end of the government shutdown potentially threatened Affordable Care Act healthcare subsidies, and before shortages of air traffic controllers cut the number of available flights and delayed others. Memory: The DRAM apocalypse is nigh Normally, we would advise against panic buying. But right now, "panic" is close to what the market is experiencing where DRAM is concerned. "I think if you're considering building a PC, you should really consider getting RAM soon," Marinelli said. "I don't see any relief in sight." As you can see in the graphic below, DDR5 memory prices have essentially doubled in two months, according to PCPartPicker's pricing graph at press time. (Price data includes promos, coupons, rebates, and shipping costs when available, the site says.) Although the effects are being felt now, the trouble started months ago. According to Jim Handy, an analyst with Objective Analysis and author of The Memory Guy blog, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) entered the DDR4 memory market, sponsored by the Chinese government. "They made their initial product launch about a year ago with DDR4 parts, and all of the major DRAM manufacturers really didn't like where CXMT was taking prices," Handy said. "They were basically trying to win customers away from these major vendors by lowering the price. And so the major vendors said, we don't have to deal with this. You know, we can sell DDR5. We want to, so we're going to stop making DDR4. So they did." Unfortunately, there was another wrinkle. "CXMT grew the company over the past year based on that, and then around December of last year, the Chinese government said, well, you guys really need to shift over to DDR5, since you have a design that you've proven to work and we don't want you to make any more," Handy said. "DDR4 prices went just absolutely sky high. They ended up becoming more expensive than DDR5." And then another. "Meanwhile, because of AI, then the DRAM business started becoming constrained, just because everybody was making these special [high-bandwidth memory] chips for AI," Handy added. "And so they started shifting their production away from DDR5 into the AI. And so, you know, between DDR4 going away and becoming really scarce, and DDR5 going into a shortage, DRAM is becoming pretty scarce." For holiday shoppers, this is a nightmare. Memory manufacturers, however, are ecstatic. DRAM is an absolute commodity, subject to supply and demand. TrendForce reports DRAM profit margins are at their highest in 30 years, over 70 percent. SK Hynix, a top DRAM maker, is sold out of everything -- DRAM for servers, PCs, and mobile devices -- throughout 2026. Samsung is refusing to sell DRAM on the short-term (or spot) market. And DDR5 prices are expected to climb throughout the first half of 2026, TrendForce reports. While the rate at which DDR4 pricing has increased has been more gradual than DDR5, the actual prices have been about DDR5 levels: According to PCPartPicker, the average price of 64GB (2x32GB) of DDR4-3600 DRAM is roughly $380 on PCPartPicker's pricing trends graphic while the same amount of DDR5-5600 is right about $400. "Through 2026 I've talked a little bit with system integrators, and they are terrified," Marinelli said "They're having contracts for memory canceled, and the companies don't care, because AI will pay whatever they ask. I don't know where the relief comes from, and I don't know when." We asked Micron (Crucial) and Kingston for comment. Neither responded. SSD storage: Calm before the storm? SSDs are just big collections of NAND memory chips and some associated logic, and prices have remained relatively flat for now. "With SSDs, they look a whole lot nicer," Handy said. "Prices will be a bit higher than they were last month, but I wouldn't expect them to be considerably higher." "Steer your readers towards buying SSDs, because that's where they're going to get a better deal," Handy added. The problem? That's not going to last long, and the question may be whether SSD makers participate in Black Friday sales, or hold inventory back for when prices inevitably rise. Rise? Yes, inevitably. Hyperscalers are buying up flash, too, and a report by TrendForce says that NAND supply will be constrained throughout 2026. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Kioxia, and Micron have jointly scaled back NAND flash production in the second half of 2025, the report says, and Samsung is considering raising NAND prices by 20 to 30 percent. That's started to be reflected in the marketplace. PCPartPicker's pricing graphic for 1TB M.2 NVMe SSDs remained flat for all of 2025, but it's starting to tick upwards. Prices for 2TB and 4TB M.2 SSDs are as well. "The rumors and kind of the news I've been seeing is less positive, but nowhere near to the extent of the RAM situation," PCPartPicker's Marinelli said. "I would expect to see storage prices increase, but not anywhere near the same rate." IDC's Mainelli said that the component shortages will have a bigger impact than tariffs. "I suggest that the current memory and storage shortage is likely to have a larger impact as we enter the first quarter of 2026," he wrote in an email. GPUs: 'In a pretty good spot' With all of the concern about the prices of Nvidia's GeForce 5000 family (both the MSRP prices as well as shortages that drove prices up), the price of graphics cards returned to earth in August, and, by and large, stayed there. With Nvidia's awaited "Super" series of GPUs either delayed until after the holidays or canceled altogether, your best bet might be to buy what's available now. "I think GPUs, surprisingly or not, are in a pretty good spot right now, all things considered," PCPartPicker's Marinelli said, adding that he expected to see some deals on graphics cards for consumer purchases. In his own research, Marinelli said that he's seen evidence that bundling may be the way toward discounts, such as combining a graphics card with a Steam gift card. All in all, that's good news. In early 2025, it seemed like you'd never find a good GPU deal ever again. CPUs: Low-end discounts disappearing? The PC processor market has been relatively stable, but Intel's business woes have churned the low end of the market. PC enthusiasts never really accepted Intel's 15th-gen Core chips, Arrow Lake, and Intel admitted in April that customers preferred Intel's older "Raptor Lake" chip instead. Intel chief financial officer David Zinsner obliquely reiterated that in the company's third-quarter earnings report when he reported that Intel was "tight on Intel 10 and 7," the manufacturing processes upon which Intel made its 11th-gen "Tiger Lake" Core chips as well as its "Alder Lake" and "Raptor Lake" CPUs. "And so as we get more demand, we're constrained," Zinsner said. "In some ways, we're living off of inventory. We're also trying to kind of demand shape to get customers to other products. " "Although as we said, we are yielding a bit of the small-core market and client to fulfill customer requirements more broadly on the client space and more specifically in the server space," Zinsner added. In the real-world, "demand shaping" probably means that Intel might discount some of its newer chips to make them financially more attractive -- Black Friday sales, basically. But Intel has only so many manufacturing resources, and Intel's fragile balance sheet means that the company is making fewer low-end, cheaper "small core" chips and prioritizing servers where it can make more money. And that probably means fewer sales of cheap PCs. We can see that in terms of rising prices on cheaper, older Intel processors. Meanwhile, prices of AMD's desktop processors, which continue to gain share against Intel, continue to hold steady. Don't wait! We've been essentially taught by retailers that the best deals of the year occur on Black Friday. But the lesson you should take away is to reject your programming: If the deal's there, take it. The KnownHost product survey also revealed a hidden gotcha: Some products "skip" Black Friday altogether, offering no discounts at all. PCWorld has been monitoring deals for years at this point, and we'll continue to highlight the best deals we see on a daily basis. In 2025 -- with a backdrop of tariffs and component shortages -- our advice is, if you see a great deal, grab it.

A major memory price surge is coming for laptops, PCs, GPUs and RAM in 2026 -- Black Friday is your only chance to survive the surge

The price of laptops, tablets, GPUs and PC components has already been under pressure this year. But now, thanks to the skyrocketing cost of RAM and SSD storage chips, it's looking like retail prices for tech could moon in 2026. Look, I know you're hearing a whole lot about Black Friday deals right now, so I'll try to not make this sound too dramatic. But this year's sales season could be the last chance you get computing tech at these prices before huge increase next year. ...well the whole not sounding "too dramatic" didn't last long. But the point stands! Let me explain. What's happening? The problem has been quietly growing throughout 2026, but now it's here with a bang thanks to the AI boom. You see, to run the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini, AI companies need to buy a whole lot of silicon for its data centers to handle all of your prompts. The critical chips in all of this are DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) and NAND flash, but you may know them by their other names: RAM and SSD storage respectively. As the demand for these chips started to skyrocket because of this boom, two things have happened: * The companies that manufacture these types of chips are seeing demand for cheaper, older memory chips vanish, given their biggest customers (companies behind the AI boom) are throwing handfuls of cash at them for the latest stuff. So these older options are being phased out. * Smaller NAND flash chips are being deprioritized in favor of the highest bidders looking to pack their AI data centers with tons of memory. Both of these together are leading to drastic silicon shortages, which are in turn leading to higher manufacturing costs for PC and smartphone brands, and inevitably, price jumps for us. How bad could it be? In one word: bad. In two words: real bad. One place we can already see it happening in real-time is with DDR5 RAM kits you can buy for your desktop PC. People are finding prices are up to 171% higher compared to 2024. Looking at what I've been tracking to buy -- the Crucial Pro 32GB DDR5 kit was $174.99, and it's now $300 in just over one month. That is astonishing. As for laptops, TrendForce's latest investigation (reported by TechPowerUp) has this pinned at a predicted 5-15% price rise in 2026. Meanwhile, AMD and Nvidia are already signaling price hikes for their GPUs, and this could be by at least 10%. Combine GPU and RAM jumps, and that could be a massive increase for prebuilt PCs. But there is a small window of hope Luckily, a lot of companies do pay attention to this stuff and plan ahead -- stockpiling the chips they need to prepare for high demand moments (like Black Friday). That is why I can confidently say that this is your last chance to grab a laptop, GPU or PC before the big old price surge takes effect. The only one to publicly acknowledge this is happening is Lenovo, but I know other companies are too. So what you have between now and the end of Cyber Monday is a final chance to grab a laptop at MSRP, a GPU at slightly below MSRP, and a desktop at a reasonable price before the memory surge sends those prices up in smoke. Surge-proof Black Friday tech deals Laptop deals Desktop PC deals Tablet deals GPU deals RAM deals Don't wait for something new To sum up what my chats have been like with people in the industry over the past couple of months in one word, it would be nervous. There's a lot of new stuff coming down the line like Intel Panther Lake and Snapdragon X2 Elite, and I'm definitely excited to try them out. But what if it's way too expensive to even consider an upgrade? And at that point, the prices of those older systems have probably gone up with reduced supply anyway. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. One thing I'm noticing from seeing what are the most clicked Black Friday deals on our site is that value for money is so critical. And if this trend continues, that feeling of value is going to evaporate quickly from the tech of 2026. For more discounts, check out our Black Friday deals live blog. Shop today's best Black Friday deals Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.