The RAM crisis has become a monster – here’s why Black Friday is your best chance to defeat the beast and what PC deals you should look for
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The AMR crisis has gained even more strength during the month of October. If memory shortage were incarnated in physical form, it would have more legs than a spider right now and would be a multi-limbed monstrosity with an underbite that grows nastier by the day as more negative news seems to arrive at a frightening pace.
Just this week, we witnessed SK Hynix predict that RAM supply problems will go nowhere and persist until 2030, after Dell’s CEO recently warned that we will be stuck in this crisis until the end of the decade, and Intel’s chief executive agreed, in addition to other similar forecasts from earlier this month.
The latest nugget of doom comes from Samsung, with the memory chip maker giving off similar vibes as rival SK Hynix when reporting its financial results (as discovered by Wccftech), informing us that the RAM shortage will worsen next year and that supply will also remain tight in 2028.
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You can barely breathe amid the various dire predictions of the past month. Naturally, in the face of so much sadness, it is human nature to try to see the positive side, or in this case, at least try to find a ray of light shining from somewhere. There must be something, right?
Well, there is: Black Friday. An event with a clearly shady name, ironically, but I am increasingly of the opinion that this will be a very important sales season from a computing and PC point of view (and probably other technologies as well). Mainly because I expect the deals you get this year will probably be the best prices they’ve been in a long time, and possibly this entire decade, if those “it’s here until 2030” voices are right in their claims about the RAM crisis.
But I hear you (possibly) cry: given all these price increases, won’t Black Friday be a bust anyway? At least based on what we saw with Amazon’s recent Prime Day sales? And yes, that’s a good point. You should manage your expectations with the discounts that will be offered, without a doubt, and don’t expect to get a bargain on RAM or that beefy SSD you’ve been dreaming about. That’s just not happening (to no one’s surprise).
However, on Prime Day, there were some decent deals, for example on GPUs. Particularly on the RTX 5080, where if you took up the deal I highlighted back then you saved 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 consider buying this Black Friday, which is less than a month away (and early deals are already starting)? Well, the best deals will probably be on the products that will be most affected by memory shortages as time goes on, and I’m going to highlight what I think are some key areas that bargain hunters should focus on when it comes to the PC sphere.
Graphics cards
I’m putting this front and center because I think it should be a priority for PC owners considering a GPU upgrade at some point in the not-too-distant future. As I already mentioned, there were some decent deals on graphics cards on Prime Day earlier this month, although when it comes to high-end GPUs, the word “decent” translates to “not bloated,” which it isn’t. quite the same thing.
Still, the problem is that prices are likely to increase much more next year, and if you need a high-end GPU in particular, during 2027 I think there is a good chance that prices will increase. batch worse. Which means that what you’ll pay on Black Friday, with the occasional scattered offer on models like an Nvidia RTX 5070 or AMD RX 9070 XT model, and maybe even an RTX 5080, will be a relative bargain (maybe for quite some time).
I think this is especially true given the rumors about the RTX 5090 being discontinued (Nvidia has insisted it’s not, but still, something is clearly wrong with the flagship GPU somewhere) and the ridiculous inflation the RTX 5080 has seen over the last month. All of this points to a tough outlook with Nvidia GPUs, and with memory (VRAM) issues set to get worse next year (and AMD also rumored to be rolling out price increases with Radeon graphics cards), my advice is to get ahead of the broader GPU price increases next year.
The problem is that Black Friday deals on graphics cards might be slim, but we might actually get some decent price cuts at the mid-to-low end of GPU territory.
gaming laptops
If you’re thinking about buying a gaming laptop, I think there’s a chance for some good deals on Black Friday: traditionally, laptop discounts abound among the massive laptop ranks, and gaming devices have more room for cuts, too.
The thing to keep in mind here is that serious gaming laptops are powered by a discrete GPU and, as noted above, graphics card price increases are on the table. In fact, this is already happening, and XMG is significantly increasing the prices of its high-end gaming laptops with the RTX 5090, while promising that “other laptop GPUs also face supply constraints.” So, more price increases are coming, and since RAM will also become more expensive next year, we can expect some painful increases.
As a result, I’d be inclined to keep a close eye on what Black Friday presents in terms of gaming laptop price cuts, and act sooner rather than later, if possible.
laptops
Outside of the gaming realm, everyday laptops are another area where I would seriously think about trying to score a Black Friday bargain. As mentioned, there are usually a lot of laptop deals (of course, we highlight the best deals on TechRadar, and laptops make up a lot of the deals we pick) and while there may not be as many this year, expect them to be there.
With RAM prices rising and the crisis worsening next year, it seems inevitable that this will increase the selling prices of all laptops (and especially gaming laptops, as noted, due to the additional pressure added by video RAM from discrete GPUs).
Analyst companies are already predicting that laptop makers will soon raise prices as they run out of stockpiled components (purchased at a cheaper cost). And one analyst group, IDC, recently warned that the only silver lining here is that some retailers are overstocking laptops (given weak PC sales this year), which may result in “promotions and some short-term relief for consumers,” which clearly refers to Black Friday.
I agree, of course, and I think that if you want a new laptop in the next few years, Black Friday 2026 is probably the best time to take the plunge.
What else?
So, on the PC side, I think laptops, particularly gaming laptops, and desktop GPUs are the key areas to focus on for Black Friday deals.
The problem with other key desktop PC components besides graphics cards is that prices have gone up so much with RAM and SSDs that even a “deal” with a big price cut looks like a very bitter buy compared to last year’s prices. These components are depressingly expensive (especially system memory), so it’s hard to recommend purchasing them unless you absolutely have to. (High-end GPUs are now also in this territory, of course.)
That said, there might be a half-decent deal on storage somewhere (we saw one or two of them on the most recent Prime Day).
On a lighter note, you might see some solid deals on CPUs if you’re looking for a new processor. This is likely to be the exception in terms of other core PC components aside from GPUs, although I don’t expect CPU prices to face the same upward pressures that graphics cards will encounter next year, so there isn’t the same sense of urgency to buy in that regard. I could be wrong on that, and the same goes for all my musings here, so season this advice liberally.
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