Why PCs are getting more expensive right now, and when you are better off waiting

If you have compared prices for a new PC in recent weeks, you may have noticed something: it no longer adds up. The graphics card costs roughly what you expected. So does the processor. And yet the total price is well above what the same PC would have cost a year ago.

The reason lies in a place hardly anyone looks at: memory.

What has actually happened

Since mid-2025, data centres for artificial intelligence have been buying up the production capacity of the three big memory manufacturers. Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix would rather deliver their chips into server racks than into modules for end customers, simply because they get paid more there. Whatever is left becomes expensive.

How expensive is best shown with specific modules. As of August 2026, from German retailers:

• 32 GB DDR5-6000 costs €475 to €540. Before the crisis it was about €120.
• A Kingston Fury Beast that once cost €114 is now at €523.
• 64 GB kits are now over €1,000.
• SSDs are on average 126 % more expensive than in September 2025.
• Even hard drives have gone up: plus 129 %. A 24 TB drive that cost €308 is at €805.

RAM has thus gone from a side item to the biggest cost driver in the PC. In a well-equipped system, memory today costs more than the processor and motherboard combined.

This is not a price increase as we know it. It is a fourfold increase.

What this means for your PC

Let us work through an example, with our real purchase prices.

A system with 32 GB of DDR5 and a 2 TB SSD would have cost around €1,125 in components in February. The same configuration costs us about €1,690 today, €565 more, without a single part having become any better.

Almost the entire surcharge is in two items: RAM and SSD.

That is exactly why a sensibly configured PC looks different today than a year ago. The old rule of thumb “RAM is cheap, just take 32 GB straight away” is simply no longer true.

Should you wait?

The honest answer is uncomfortable: probably not.

We have looked at the forecasts, and none of them expects falling prices before 2027. Market observers expect high prices until at least mid or late 2027, a noticeable decline is seen more for 2028. The reason is simple: new factories for memory chips are not built in a year.

So if you wait for better prices, you are realistically waiting two years. Two years with a PC that already bothers you now.

Waiting only pays off in one case: your current PC works, you are just not happy with it. Then a single component is often the better idea than a whole system, more on that in a moment.

Where you can sensibly save now

If you are buying anyway, configure it differently from before. Three points make the biggest difference today:

16 GB instead of 32 GB

For gaming, 16 GB is still enough everywhere. 32 GB was the comfortable recommendation for years because it cost hardly anything. Today this comfort surcharge costs around €250. Unless you edit videos or run virtual machines, the money is better spent on the graphics card.

You can still upgrade later, hopefully at reasonable prices by then.

1 TB instead of 2 TB

The same principle for storage. A 1 TB SSD is enough for Windows and a decent game collection. If it fills up, add a second one; every motherboard has a free slot. A full drive is a luxury problem that you solve in ten minutes.

Check DDR4 instead of DDR5

This is the point that surprises people most: 32 GB of DDR4 is available from about €210, less than half the DDR5 price. This makes the older AM4 platform remarkably cheap right now.

The catch should be stated honestly: AM4 is at the end of its life, there will be no new processors for it. So if you plan to swap only the CPU in three years, AM5 is still the right choice. If you want a PC that runs well now and gets replaced in five years, AM4 saves you a good amount of money right now.

And what you had better not do

Do not turn to used parts for price reasons. The thought is obvious, and memory seems suitable for it, no wear, no moving parts. Why we still no longer do it, we have written down in detail elsewhere. The short version: a failure after eight months eats up the savings from several PCs.

And do not fall for offers that look too good. If a complete system is remarkably cheap right now, it is worth looking at the memory configuration. The price has to come from somewhere.

How we deal with it

We do not keep components in stock, we only buy once you order. In this market that means two things.

The unpleasant part: we cannot guarantee prices for months. What we quote you applies to your quote, not for all time.

The good part: you do not get components that have been on the shelf for half a year, and we do not have to recover overpriced stock through the price.

If you are thinking about it right now: write to us what you have in mind and what your PC cannot do today. Sometimes the most honest answer is that a new graphics card in the existing case is enough, and that costs considerably fewer nerves right now than a complete new build.