TECH NEWS – We are slowly reaching the point where pre-built PCs will either be exorbitantly priced or reasonably priced but without memory.

Memory prices have skyrocketed, and the peak of these increases is still unknown. The shortage continues as valuable DDR5 ICs are increasingly diverted toward AI workloads. Over the past few months, this has caused significant price fluctuations for many pre-built PCs, which is far from encouraging. Manufacturers are doing everything they can to maintain good value, but even they are struggling to keep pace with rising costs.

As a result, pre-built PC manufacturers such as Maingear are introducing a new category of systems aimed at gamers and enthusiasts that ship without DDR5 memory. Maingear is marketing these systems as Build Your Own RAM builds. This essentially allows customers to purchase a PC without DDR5 memory and source it externally, either delivering the memory to Maingear at the time of purchase or shipping it directly to the company, which will then carry out its standard inspection process before sending the completed system to the customer.

This option gives users the chance to hunt for better deals that, while not matching prices from a few months ago, can still help save some money. It represents a sensible alternative for those considering a pre-built PC, and as mentioned earlier, more manufacturers are likely to adopt similar approaches until the memory crisis is resolved or at least eased.

In many cases, sticking with an older configuration may be the more practical solution. If the system is old enough, buying used memory might not be a major issue. For example, a used DDR4 ECC RAM stick for a workstation PC is unlikely to cost so much that you would need to take out a loan for it, especially when compared to the almost absurdly high prices of DDR5 memory.

Forrás: WCCFTech, Maingear