PC parts are very expensive right now.It's a tough time to replace or upgrade almost anything, but some components, like RAM, are even worse.Ideally, you should wait until things are cheaper before buying new parts, but if you have to, some components can still be bought used at a good price.
There's no reason to steer clear of used RAM Thanks to the gaping maw of generative AI, the price of RAM has escalated dramatically in the past year, reaching obscene prices that nobody wants to pay, even if they really need more RAM.32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM was reasonable when it was $100, but $300-$400? No thank you.That kind of money is much better spent on a graphics card.
It's tempting to consider a new kit of brand-new RAM for your PC, but there's plenty of reason to go for used RAM instead.It's very low-risk.Sure, because of how the market is right now, you'll still be paying more for used RAM than you normally would, but it'll still be a lot cheaper than buying brand-new RAM.
This is true even if you're looking for older DDR4 RAM, which has been hit by exponential price increases just like DDR5 has.Unlike a lot of other components, you rarely have to worry about used RAM being faulty.If you buy from reputable sellers on eBay and Amazon, you'll get what you need for a much lower price than the going rate for new RAM, and without much of a real difference in performance, either.
Brand new graphics cards are more expensive than ever New, top-of-the line graphics cards being obscenely expensive is not the fault of the current RAM crisis created by AI use.They've always been one of the most expensive components there is.But this has combined with the DRAM shortage to make GPUs even more of a bank-breaker than before.
Graphics cards with larger VRAM capacities are the worst off, and even Nvidia announced a big drop in consumer GPU production, so you can expect prices for many of their new graphics cards to go up.Even an RTX 5080 is often about $1,400–$1,800 now, and that's not even the priciest model out there.Now, most hardcore PC gamers want the best they can get in the graphics department, but not for these absurd prices we are seeing.
You can buy a used, older model for a fraction of the price, and without a huge difference in performance.After all, generational improvements for graphics cards haven't been anything extreme as of late.For example, the RX 7900 XT, the previous generation, is easy enough to find at $450, and it's only around 10% slower than the newer-gen RTX 5070 Ti.
If you can save several hundred dollars by losing just a little bit of performance, that's worth considering, especially in this market.There are plenty of dirt-cheap graphics cards still worth buying even if they are outdated.HDDs and SSDs are better when they're cheap RAM is not the only thing exploding in price due to a lack of DRAM chips.
The silicon used in those chips is also used in things like SSDs and HDDs, so a silicon supply shortage drives up the prices of those storage solutions as well.Over the last few months, popular SSDs have greatly increased in price, doubling in some unfortunate cases.Both Gen5 and Gen4 storage solutions are more expensive than they were last year, and even hard drives have gone up more than usual.
Buying used drives is a little riskier than some other components, because you always have to wonder about the longevity of a drive that's already been used.If you are going to buy used, you obviously need to stick to reputable sellers and get as much info about the condition of the drive as possible, but doing so can save you a lot of money.You could also look specifically for used enterprise SSDs, which usually have great internals and endurance way higher than any regular consumer model.
You might need an adapter to make it work, but the savings could be well worth it.Especially since SSDs have so many great features.You can save on CPUs, too Admittedly, CPU prices have not shot up over the past year like a bunch of other components have.
But if you're struggling to nab DDR5 memory in this current market, you probably don't even need the newest CPU anyway.Honestly, the situation is not that different from the GPUs.Yes, the newest generation CPUs are technically better than the previous generation.
But not by a huge margin.Certainly not by enough to justify their price.AM4, for example, is a great choice for budget gaming right now.
If you buy used, a Ryzen 7 5700X3D could be nabbed for about $100.The difference in performance between it and a Ryzen 5 7600X/Ryzen 5 9600X is not that big.In fact, it's pretty affordable to make a DDR4 build for budget gaming even in today's market.
A Ryzen 7 5700X3D, some 32GB DDR4 RAM, a DDR4 motherboard; most of these can be procured used at a reasonable price., and might be a good investment if you're still rocking an outdated CPU.Needless to say, building or upgrading a computer with used components is always cheaper than buying brand-new parts.But the real opportunity right now is the fact that the used-parts market has not corrected to fully match the inflated prices of brand-new parts.
This window of significantly more affordable used parts may not last very long, so if you're willing to buy something used for your computer, now is probably the best time to do it for the foreseeable future.
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