This yr, Black Friday tech customers ought to heed one vital message: Don’t wait, purchase now. Why? Because sure parts are skyrocketing in worth—and it’s anticipated to get even worse. DRAM costs, for instance, have doubled in little greater than a month.
AI hyperscalers have snapped up no matter they will purchase. As OpenAI and its rivals throw billions of {dollars} at {hardware} makers, commodity chip distributors are prioritizing them over customers. That means fewer parts for you. And have you ever heard about tariffs?
Intel has already instructed analysts that it’s de-prioritizing its low-end, low cost PC microprocessors and predicting shortages in 2026. DRAM? Forget about it: DDR4 reminiscence is being phased out, and DDR5 worth tendencies are virtually going vertical. SSDs are much less affected, however nonetheless beneath stress. Same for GPUs. Weirdly, laptop computer patrons would possibly see higher offers than regular, if solely as a result of distributors need to offload stock.
Black Friday, certainly.
So what are you able to do? Each yr, PCWorld digs by tech offers, with an eye fixed in the direction of bringing you the most effective tech offers on laptops, Chromebooks, SSDs and storage, parts, and extra. This yr, we needed to know the place you could possibly count on financial savings, and the place you might need to squint arduous to discover a whole lot. Some firms had been comfortable to go on the report. Most weren’t, or declined to remark. Because they’re nonetheless making an attempt to determine what to supply. “Black Friday” clearly isn’t only a day. It’s a season.
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How to buy Black Friday like a professional
PCWorld.com is publishing deal roundups for all your favorite components. But earlier than even speaking about the place you’ll be capable of discover offers, there are two Black Friday buying methods that you just’ll need to know for 2025: the ability of bundles, and of shopping for used.
Bundles: In years previous, you’ll have seen an e-tailer toss you a free present card for getting one thing. In 2025, search for this technique to achieve one other stage. Ryan Marinelli, the principal technical specialist for PCPartPicker.com, stated that he’s already seen a motherboard, 32GB of RAM, and a Steam card bundled collectively: a hard-to-find, costly part bundled with one thing extra simply accessible. Software and present playing cards are at all times out there, and so they may be used extra steadily in the course of the 2025 vacation season.
Used: You’re in all probability acquainted with eBay and probably Amazon’s Renewed program. But Amanda Stefan, the chief government of used-component market Jawa.gg, instructed PCWorld.com: “Ever since the word ‘tariff’ was uttered, our business has tripled year over year.”
“Typically, you’ll save 20 to 40 percent off of buying something new,” Stefan added. (Read extra in our Jawa.gg profile.)
Unfortunately, retailers have begun mountaineering costs in September and October, solely to then drop them in November and December to create “sales.” The primary culprits have been tablets and telephones, in response to a examine carried out by KnownHost all through 2023 and 2024. Laptops, thankfully, weren’t as inclined.
Still, retailers and distributors are mountaineering extra costs early to create the phantasm of a sale throughout Black Friday, from 16 merchandise out of the 60 KnownHost tracked in 2023, to 19 out of 60 in 2024. The excellent news? More lowered their costs for Black Friday, from 5 to 22 throughout 2023 to 2024.
We requested Amazon, Newegg, and Best Buy for remark. All declined.
Laptops and Chromebooks: Yes, offers are a risk
The phrase of the yr for 2025 has been “tariff.”
Though tariffs roiled the laptop market in March and April, President Trump appears to have backed off a commerce struggle that few welcomed. On Nov. 10, Trump met Chinese president Xi Jinping, who agreed to reduce exports of chemicals that can be utilized to make fentanyl, the rationale that Trump has used to levy tariffs in opposition to China. However, Trump’s powers to use tariffs — beneath debate within the Supreme Court — might still remain, but with limitations.
All which means is, properly, who is aware of? PC and part makers did all the pieces they may to keep away from tariffs, drop-shipping them to different nations, migrating manufacturing amenities, and promoting techniques that had already cleared U.S. customs. Given that retailers and e-tailers aren’t disclosing which techniques have been tariffed, there’s no level in making an attempt to play detective as to which laptops and PCs can be damage by tariffs — simply search for the most effective costs.
The drawback is that part shortages are biting arduous, and customers won’t pay attention to how arduous. “I think if you’re considering a PC, I’d move [quickly] if you find the deals,” stated Ryan Marinelli, a principal technical specialist for PCPartPicker. “And I wouldn’t wait to see whether on Black Friday there is going to be the best deal.”
Joel Lee / IDG
“If you have the money and you’re ready, I I would purchase the system instead of waiting and holding out to save $10 because you never know what it’s going to be tomorrow, especially with RAM and storage,” Marinelli stated.
With that stated, analysts are making some early guesses about the place laptop computer and Chromebook offers may arrive.
“It’s important to note that different vendors will be impacted at different rates based on their scale,” Tom Mainelli, who heads IDC’s Device and Consumer Research Group, stated in an electronic mail. “For example, PC vendors such as Dell and Lenovo should be able to achieve better pricing even in a constrained market than some of their competitors, since they also purchase large volumes of these components for their infrastructure businesses. Similarly, Apple—which purchases huge volumes across its Mac, iPad, and iPhone lines—should enjoy better pricing than most.”
There are just a few forces at work: First, the vacations are the time-honored alternative to filter out older stock. IDC analyst Ryan Reith, the group vice chairman with IDC’s Device Trackers, had stated in October that distributors are going to must resolve between refreshing a PC lineup with parts that would run the chance of tariffs, and holding on to outdated stock.
“The supply side of the PC industry is doing its best to navigate the unknowns as no one wants to sit on their heels and potentially miss an opportunity, but at the same time it is very risky carrying inventory which is a possibility given the strong first half sell-in,” Reith wrote.
“Price increases will likely be dispersed over time and geography depending on vendor strategy which can potentially lead to some attractive promotions as a way to clear inventory backups,” Reith added.
But Mainelli warned that customers would possibly see higher offers at increased worth factors, and never simply finances PCs being slashed to the bone.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
“I’d suggest that price increases won’t be universal across vendors,” Mainelli stated. “It is also worth noting that price increases (or less dramatic sale prices) are more likely to appear at the low- and mid-range PC price points than the premium-priced categories, where all vendors have more potential margin to absorb the higher bill of materials cost.”
In half, that’s as a result of Intel has stated publicly that it’s keen to sacrifice a little bit of its low-end PC processor gross sales in favor of higher-margin server elements. Simple economics says that can assist push costs increased.
“Intel is prioritizing server chips and mobile over desktop,” stated Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research, in an electronic mail. “This will not have a significant impact on the holiday season, but OEMs will push more AMD and possibly Qualcomm [PCs].”
It won’t have an effect on pricing or vacation gross sales, however PC distributors are additionally worrying about how a lot you’ll be keen to purchase this vacation. The National Retail Federation’s 2025 survey discovered that customers plan to spend $628 on vacation items this yr, down from $641 in 2024. About 22 % of these surveyed are asking for electronics. But that survey was taken in October, earlier than the top of the federal government shutdown probably threatened Affordable Care Act healthcare subsidies, and earlier than shortages of air visitors controllers lower the variety of out there flights and delayed others.
Memory: The DRAM apocalypse is nigh
Normally, we might advise in opposition to panic shopping for. But proper now, “panic” is near what the market is experiencing the place DRAM is anxious.
“I think if you’re considering building a PC, you should really consider getting RAM soon,” Marinelli stated. “I don’t see any relief in sight.”
Teamgroup / Amazon
As you possibly can see within the graphic under, DDR5 reminiscence costs have primarily doubled in two months, in response to PCPartPicker’s pricing graph at press time. (Price information contains promos, coupons, rebates, and transport prices when out there, the positioning says.)
Although the consequences are being felt now, the difficulty began months in the past. According to Jim Handy, an analyst with Objective Analysis and creator of The Memory Guy weblog, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) entered the DDR4 reminiscence market, sponsored by the Chinese authorities.
PCPartPicker.com
“They made their initial product launch about a year ago with DDR4 parts, and all of the major DRAM manufacturers really didn’t like where CXMT was taking prices,” Handy stated. “They were basically trying to win customers away from these major vendors by lowering the price. And so the major vendors said, we don’t have to deal with this. You know, we can sell DDR5. We want to, so we’re going to stop making DDR4. So they did.”
Unfortunately, there was one other wrinkle. “CXMT grew the company over the past year based on that, and then around December of last year, the Chinese government said, well, you guys really need to shift over to DDR5, since you have a design that you’ve proven to work and we don’t want you to make any more,” Handy stated. “DDR4 prices went just absolutely sky high. They ended up becoming more expensive than DDR5.”
And then one other. “Meanwhile, because of AI, then the DRAM business started becoming constrained, just because everybody was making these special [high-bandwidth memory] chips for AI,” Handy added. “And so they started shifting their production away from DDR5 into the AI. And so, you know, between DDR4 going away and becoming really scarce, and DDR5 going into a shortage, DRAM is becoming pretty scarce.”
For vacation customers, this can be a nightmare. Memory producers, nonetheless, are ecstatic.
DRAM is an absolute commodity, topic to provide and demand. DevelopmentForce reports DRAM revenue margins are at their highest in 30 years, over 70 %. SK Hynix, a prime DRAM maker, is offered out of all the pieces — DRAM for servers, PCs, and cell units — all through 2026. Samsung is refusing to promote DRAM on the short-term (or spot) market. And DDR5 costs are anticipated to climb all through the primary half of 2026, DevelopmentForce experiences.
PCPartPicker.com
While the speed at which DDR4 pricing has elevated has been extra gradual than DDR5, the precise costs have been about DDR5 ranges: According to PCPartPicker, the common worth of 64GB (2x32GB) of DDR4-3600 DRAM is roughly $380 on PCPartPicker’s pricing tendencies graphic whereas the identical quantity of DDR5-5600 is true about $400.
“Through 2026 I’ve talked a little bit with system integrators, and they are terrified,” Marinelli stated “They’re having contracts for memory canceled, and the companies don’t care, because AI will pay whatever they ask. I don’t know where the relief comes from, and I don’t know when.”
We requested Micron (Crucial) and Kingston for remark. Neither responded.
SSD storage: Calm earlier than the storm?
SSDs are simply massive collections of NAND reminiscence chips and a few related logic, and costs have remained comparatively flat for now.
“With SSDs, they look a whole lot nicer,” Handy stated. “Prices will be a bit higher than they were last month, but I wouldn’t expect them to be considerably higher.”
“Steer your readers towards buying SSDs, because that’s where they’re going to get a better deal,” Handy added.
Jon Martindale / Foundry
The drawback? That’s not going to final lengthy, and the query could also be whether or not SSD makers take part in Black Friday gross sales, or maintain stock again for when costs inevitably rise.
Rise? Yes, inevitably. Hyperscalers are shopping for up flash, too, and a report by TrendForce says that NAND provide can be constrained all through 2026. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Kioxia, and Micron have collectively scaled again NAND flash manufacturing within the second half of 2025, the report says, and Samsung is contemplating elevating NAND costs by 20 to 30 %.
That’s began to be mirrored within the market. PCPartPicker’s pricing graphic for 1TB M.2 NVMe SSDs remained flat for all of 2025, nevertheless it’s beginning to tick upwards. Prices for 2TB and 4TB M.2 SSDs are as properly.
PCPartPicker.com
“The rumors and kind of the news I’ve been seeing is less positive, but nowhere near to the extent of the RAM situation,” PCPartPicker’s Marinelli stated. “I would expect to see storage prices increase, but not anywhere near the same rate.”
IDC’s Mainelli stated that the part shortages could have a much bigger affect than tariffs. “I suggest that the current memory and storage shortage is likely to have a larger impact as we enter the first quarter of 2026,” he wrote in an electronic mail.
GPUs: ‘In a pretty good spot’
With the entire concern concerning the prices of Nvidia’s GeForce 5000 family (each the MSRP costs in addition to shortages that drove prices up), the price of graphics cards returned to earth in August, and, by and enormous, stayed there. With Nvidia’s awaited “Super” sequence of GPUs both delayed till after the vacations or canceled altogether, your finest wager may be to purchase what’s out there now.
Thiago Trevisan/IDG
“I think GPUs, surprisingly or not, are in a pretty good spot right now, all things considered,” PCPartPicker’s Marinelli stated, including that he anticipated to see some offers on graphics playing cards for client purchases.
In his personal analysis, Marinelli stated that he’s seen proof that bundling could be the approach towards reductions, corresponding to combining a graphics card with a Steam present card.
PCPartPicker.com
All in all, that’s excellent news. In early 2025, it appeared such as you’d by no means discover a good GPU deal ever once more.
CPUs: Low-end reductions disappearing?
The PC processor market has been comparatively secure, however Intel’s enterprise woes have churned the low finish of the market.
PC fans by no means actually accepted Intel’s 15th-gen Core chips, Arrow Lake, and Intel admitted in April that customers preferred Intel’s older “Raptor Lake” chip as an alternative. Intel chief monetary officer David Zinsner obliquely reiterated that within the firm’s third-quarter earnings report when he reported that Intel was “tight on Intel 10 and 7,” the manufacturing processes upon which Intel made its 11th-gen “Tiger Lake” Core chips in addition to its “Alder Lake” and “Raptor Lake” CPUs.
“And so as we get more demand, we’re constrained,” Zinsner stated. “In some methods, we’re residing off of stock. We’re additionally making an attempt to sort of demand form to get prospects to different merchandise. “
Thomas Ryan/IDG
“Although as we said, we are yielding a bit of the small-core market and client to fulfill customer requirements more broadly on the client space and more specifically in the server space,” Zinsner added.
In the real-world, “demand shaping” in all probability implies that Intel would possibly low cost a few of its newer chips to make them financially extra engaging — Black Friday gross sales, principally. But Intel has solely so many manufacturing assets, and Intel’s fragile steadiness sheet implies that the corporate is making fewer low-end, cheaper “small core” chips and prioritizing servers the place it will probably earn more money. And that in all probability means fewer gross sales of low cost PCs.
We can see that when it comes to rising costs on cheaper, older Intel processors.
PCPartPicker.com
Meanwhile, costs of AMD’s desktop processors, which continue to gain share against Intel, proceed to carry regular.
Don’t wait!
We’ve been primarily taught by retailers that the most effective offers of the yr happen on Black Friday. But the lesson it’s best to take away is to reject your programming: If the deal’s there, take it. The KnownHost product survey additionally revealed a hidden gotcha: Some merchandise “skip” Black Friday altogether, providing no reductions in any respect.
PCWorld has been monitoring offers for years at this level, and we’ll proceed to spotlight the most effective offers we see each day. In 2025 — with a backdrop of tariffs and part shortages — our recommendation is, when you see a terrific deal, seize it.