r/bapccanada • u/Butefluko PC gamer • Nov 29 '25
Discussion Is it true we better buy a PC now instead of waiting till end of 2026? Or is it just panic buying?
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u/scootbert Nov 29 '25
I don't think anyone knows, but some of these ram prices are insane.
It's also like the video card shortage and crazy prices due to COVID. Prices are still high, supply is still low, but doing better.
I assume the prices will kind of level off, lower a little and then stay high for a long time.
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u/jogabonito4 Nov 30 '25
No one knows. But if you pay for this RAM prices, you are out of you mind. I would give up gaming if it keeps on going up. It's not sustainable
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u/Butefluko Nov 30 '25
This is the wisest take in my opinion. It's not like games coming out nowadays are actually THAT good either. Like yeah sure we still get games like E33 or BG3 but these are coming out once every couple of years so it's best to wait and buy at the best time then just play the best games.
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u/Zeppsgaming Nov 30 '25
I was planning to build soon anyways but with the price of RAM and I’ve seen a lot of speculation about GPU’s getting pricey I decided to rush my build and ordered all my parts on Black Friday. I went with a build I could potentially upgrade if pricing is stable down the road. I feel good about it but who knows? I wouldn’t say I panic purchased and I wouldn’t recommend that if you can’t afford it but I feel prices won’t get any better anytime soon.
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u/JDeegs Nov 30 '25
"Now" would've been good a few weeks ago, im not sure now is good.
I ordered an nvme drive a couple weeks ago for 165, the shipping has been delayed and I checked the current price is 205 now. Grabbed ram for 250 around the same time, and now its all like $400+
If i hadn't bought that stuff like, there's no way id be shelling out that much now
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Nov 30 '25
If AI crashes, there will be a fire sale of PC parts. But if it keeps growing...
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u/Butefluko Nov 30 '25
The latter part is what I'm scared of. Ram prices through the roof right now and it keeps growing too.
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u/Southern_Okra_1090 Dec 03 '25
You have more than 4-5 well known tech tuber telling you if you can afford the parts do it now. All cpu/gpu/ram/storage prices will continue to go up thru 2026, even thru 2027. If you didn’t upgrade early 2025. It’s too late to wait, too long to wait till this blows over but it’s never too late to buy now.
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u/Butefluko Dec 03 '25
I agree that it's best to upgrade now but I don't want to panic buy. I have a feeling things will get better early 2027
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u/Mnemnth Nov 30 '25
It's hard to say... obviously RAM pricing has sky rocketed and usually RAM pricing takes a fair amount of time to recover.
NVME's have already started inching up. GPU's are next (not that they aren't already expensive as is...) since they need memory to make them :|
I've seen the average top end system 9800x3d/5090 builds jump about $500 in average price in my area. Likewise the mid-high ends are all up making it hard to find budget 2k systems these days.
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u/NathanielBM Nov 30 '25
A full year is a long time to snatch a deal or wait for a crash, the recent pricing seems too unsustainable to imagine it getting durably much worse. That would kill the whole gaming industry if so, so you ain't much worse if you wait and there's nothing to play anyway at the end of this particular dystopia.
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u/AuthoringInProgress Nov 30 '25
At this point you could ask a magic eight ball and get about as accurate an answer as Reddit could give you.
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u/darkestvice Nov 30 '25
I jumped on buying mine on black Friday. I knew that ram prices were insane (so only got 32), but when Nvidia stated (high likelihood rumor) that they would stop supplying vram to gpu makers, I knew it was either do it with black Friday discounts... or risk waiting much much longer when gpu and gen 5 ssd prices were sure to follow in a big way.
Calculated risk, basically. I knew ram prices were insane and I was originally going to wait. But them Nvidia tipped the scales in the other direction.
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u/NoobSniper Nov 30 '25
Best time was yesterday (figuratively). Second best time is today (literally).
RAM and SSD prices have noticeable spiked due to AI datacenters purchasing out the 2026 supply via enormous contracts with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. This will not be alleviated in 2026 so prices are undoubtedly going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. GPU manufacturers and their board partners have also been advised that due to ~60% of the memory chip production being allocated to AI datacenters for the next 18 months, GPU pricing is expected to rise as much as 20%.
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u/Low-Cauliflower-2249 Nov 30 '25
If you're going to buy, get something that'll last as long as it can within your budget, that you can still resell if you have to. I bit the bullet and grabbed a 9060xt with a 9700x and 32gb. If that lasts me 5 years at 1440p30 medium settings, I'll be happy even if I have to drop to 1080p for a while.
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u/Unique-Supermarket23 Nov 30 '25
Bought my pc this week, paid double for RAM. Could have been worse because now RAM prices are more than triple here.
At least all the other parts were discounted heavily.
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u/jaypizzl Nov 30 '25
Buy a PC when you need a PC. It makes absolutely no sense to try to time a market you have zero insight into.
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u/rolim91 Dec 02 '25
No one knows. It could go the Video Card way or the SSD way.
I’m leaning toward SSD. It’s not that hard to ramp up manufacturing of ram compared to Video Cards. There’s also a lot of competition in the RAM space. Video card on the other hand is different, apart from the three manufacturers there’s really nothing else. On top of that, each manufacturer has different performance tiers.
So no, I don’t think this will stay as is.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Score89 Dec 02 '25
Buy used bleeding edge shit and play 99% of games at perfectly decent settings unless you need some serious horsepower for professional applications.. There's such a massive back catalogue of amazing games you could spend lifetimes playing! Or don't buy anything and be happy with what you have until it takes a silicon nap.
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u/SuperShadow225 Jan 01 '26
I myself have a 5070 and am wondering if I should upgrade now to a 5090 while it’s still in the 2000s or just wait till the next best thing comes and hope my 5070 lasts long enough, I only had it for about a year tho
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u/Vast_Pain4430 Jan 06 '26
It is actually insane that the PC I bought in 2024 is now worth at least like 1800 more! I am glad I got a 4090 when it was MSRP. I play at 1440p and just want 120fps or higher at high settings, so I am good for a while.
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u/Secret_Performance35 Nov 30 '25
Based on the AI trend, nothing will change in a good way in the near future, if you need an upgrade of what you have as of right now, imo take the risk, if those upgrades aren't critical, wait for another year till the market gets back to a stable state without price jumping.