The RAM crisis has grown even more limbs during the month of October. If the memory shortage was incarnated in physical form, it’d have more legs than a spider at this point, and be a multi-limbed monstrosity with a bite that’s getting nastier by the day as more negative news seems to roll in at a frightening pace.
Just this week, we’ve witnessed SK Hynix predicting that RAM supply woes are going nowhere and will persist through to 2030, after Dell’s CEO recently warned that we’re stuck with this crisis until the end of the decade, and Intel’s chief exec agreed – on top of other similar forecasts from earlier this month.
The latest nugget of doom is from Samsung, with the memory chip maker giving out similar vibes to its rival SK Hynix when reporting its financial results (as Wccftech spotted), informing us that RAM shortages will get worse next year, and supply will remain thin on the ground in 2028, too.
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You can barely catch a breath between the various dire predictions during the past month. Naturally, in the face of such grimness, it’s human nature to try to look on the bright side, or in this case, at least attempt to find a glimmer of light shining through from somewhere. There must be something, right?
Well, there is: Black Friday. An event with a distinctly gloomy name, ironically, but I’m increasingly of the opinion that this is going to be a very important sales season from the computing and PC point of view (and likely other tech, too). Mainly because I expect that the deals you’ll get this year will likely be the best prices to be had in a long while, and possibly this entire decade, if those ‘it’s here until 2030’ voices are correct in their assertions about the RAM crisis.
But I hear you (possibly) cry: given all these price hikes, isn’t Black Friday going to be a wash anyway? At least based on what we saw with Amazon‘s recent Prime Day sales? And yes, that’s a fair point. You should manage your expectations with the discounts that’ll be on offer, certainly, and don’t expect to snag a bargain on RAM sticks or that beefy SSD you’ve been dreaming about. That just isn’t happening (to no one’s surprise).
However, on Prime Day, there were some decent deals to be had, for example on GPUs. Notably on the RTX 5080, where if you grabbed the deal I highlighted back then, you saved yourself 20% (£300) compared to the price of the cheapest model of that Nvidia GPU on Amazon now (at the time of writing).
So, given that, what should you be looking at buying this Black Friday, which is less than a month away now (with early offers starting already)? Well, the best deals will likely be in the products set to be more affected by the memory shortage as time rolls on, and I’m going to highlight what I believe are a few key areas bargain hunters should focus on when it comes to the PC sphere.
Graphics cards
I’m putting this one front and center because I believe this should be a priority for PC owners who are looking at a GPU upgrade at some point in the not-too-distant-future. As I already mentioned, there were some decent graphics card deals on Prime Day earlier this month – albeit when it comes to the higher-end GPUs, the word ‘decent’ translates to ‘not inflated’, which isn’t quite the same thing.
Still, the problem is that prices are likely to rise a good deal more next year, and if you do need a higher-end GPU in particular, during 2027 I think there’s a good chance pricing will get a lot worse. Meaning that what you’ll pay on Black Friday, with the odd scattered deal on the likes of an Nvidia RTX 5070 model or AMD RX 9070 XT – and maybe even an RTX 5080 – will be a relative bargain (maybe for quite some time to come).
I think this is especially true given the rumors around the RTX 5090 being discontinued (Nvidia has insisted it isn’t, but even so, something’s clearly amiss with the flagship GPU somewhere), and the ridiculous inflation the RTX 5080 has seen over the past month. All of this indicates a rocky picture with Nvidia’s GPUs, and with memory (VRAM) difficulties set to worsen next year – and AMD also rumored to be implementing price hikes with Radeon graphics cards – my advice is to get in ahead of wider GPU price spikes next year.
The catch is that Black Friday deals on graphics cards could be thin on the ground, but we may actually get some decent price cuts in the mid-to-lower-end of GPU territory.
Gaming laptops
If you’re thinking about buying a gaming laptop, I think there’s scope for some good deals on Black Friday – traditionally laptop discounts are plentiful among the massed ranks of portables, and gaming devices have more headroom for cuts, too.
What you need to consider here is that serious gaming laptops run with a discrete GPU, and as noted above, graphics card price increases are very much on the table. Indeed, this is already happening, and XMG is pushing up prices for its top-end gaming laptops with the RTX 5090 in a major way, while promising that “other laptop GPUs are also facing supply constraints.” Further price rises are coming, then, and with RAM getting more costly next year too, we can expect some painful hikes.
As a result, I’d be inclined to keep a careful watch on what Black Friday presents in the way of gaming laptop price cuts, and move sooner rather than later if at all possible.
Laptops
Outside of the gaming arena, everyday laptops are another area where I’d seriously think about trying to nab a Black Friday bargain. As mentioned, there are usually a lot of laptop deals – we highlight the top offers at TechRadar, of course, and notebooks represent quite a number of the bargains we pick out – and while there may not be so many this year, expect them to be there.
With the rising tide of RAM prices and the worsening of the crisis next year, it seems inevitable that this will jack up the asking prices of all laptops (and especially gaming laptops, as noted, due to the extra pressure added by the video RAM of discrete GPUs).
Analyst firms are already predicting that laptop manufacturers are soon going to ramp up pricing as they run short of stockpiled components (purchased at a cheaper cost). And one analyst outfit, IDC, recently advised that the only positive glimmer here is that some retailers are carrying too much notebook stock (given flagging PC sales this year) which may result in “promotions and some short-term relief for consumers,” which is clearly referring to Black Friday.
I agree, of course, and think that if you want a new laptop in the next couple of years, Black Friday 2026 is likely to be the best time to make your move.
What else?
On the PC side, then, I feel that laptops – particularly gaming notebooks – and desktop GPUs are the key areas to focus on for Black Friday bargains.
The trouble with other key desktop PC components aside from graphics cards is that pricing has got so high with RAM and SSDs that even a ‘bargain’ with a big price cut feels like a very sour purchase compared to prices last year. These components are just depressingly expensive (especially system memory), so it’s difficult to recommend buying at all unless you’re absolutely forced to. (Top-end GPUs are now in this territory too, of course).
That said, there may just be a half-decent deal on storage somewhere (we did see one or two of those in the most recent Prime Day).
On a lighter note, you might well see some solid deals on CPUs if you’re on the hunt for a new processor. This is likely to be the exception in terms of the other core PC components aside from GPUs, although I’m not expecting CPU prices to face the same upward pricing pressures that graphics cards will encounter next year, so there isn’t the same sense of urgency to buy in that respect. I could be wrong in that, mind – and the same goes for all my musings here – so season this advice liberally.
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Darren Allan
