Gartner’s recent report states that both SSD and RAM prices will be dropping by up to 44% through the rest of 2019. That trend is expected to stick around until the beginning of the second quarter of 2020. Following that news, we must ask whether it’s time to finally pull the trigger and upgrade your RAM.
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Is Now the Time to Buy RAM?
Purchasing RAM for half its regular price is as good a deal as you’re most likely ever to get when upgrading your memory.
For general consumers, the short and sweet answer is yes. Go ahead and upgrade your RAM right now. Though ram prices are expected to continue to drop and stay at low prices for at least six months, these are only guesses.
Gartner is basing this analysis on simple economics – supply and demand. RAM manufacturers have a considerable surplus of products right now. They created this surplus product in anticipation of massive demand. That demand never arrived.
Gartner is predicting that the surplus will last until next year. That prediction is based on the current buying habits of consumers, businesses, and OEMs. OEMs will have the most considerable effect on these numbers. That prediction is also based on the expected amount of product RAM manufactures will produce.
Again, this is all a guess. Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? Though it’s largely been proven not to cause hurricanes and significant weather disruptions, there’s nothing to say The Butterfly Effect won’t have influence here. This story’s simple fact has broken throughout all notable tech media outlets that could cause a rush to purchase.
Will the Price of RAM Rise Again?
If I were a betting man, I’d bet that these RAM prices don’t last long, and they increase again.
We saw this same trend in the mid-2000s. RAM prices dropped to some of the lowest prices ever seen in the industry. As RAM prices continued to fall, consumers snatched it up fast. This ended up leading to a memory drought.
That’s why we recommend general consumers purchase RAM now. RAM prices have dropped significantly. If you have been wanting to upgrade to 16gbs of RAM in your system or think you might be building a new system in the next few months, go ahead and purchase it. Buyer’s remorse sucks, especially when knowing you could have gotten a product for a little cheaper. Taking a gamble on memory prices is precisely that, though, a gamble. Don’t forget, the house always wins.
Is This a Good Deal for Businesses?
We would not classify these RAM prices as a good deal. We’d classify them as a fantastic deal for businesses you won’t want to miss.
We could offer the same advice to businesses. Now is a great time for IT departments to stock up while RAM prices are low. All IT departments get that occasional request from users for memory upgrades. It will be difficult for many businesses to figure out where to stick the cost, which budget it should be pulled from, and justifying sitting on those expenses for a bit. In the long run, though, it’s far cheaper to sit on a small surplus now rather than pay double the cost later.
If a business has a more agile IT solution, one where they are not locked into a contract for given specs from a vendor, now is a great time to save money on equipment, too. Purchase a few devices that have lower memory specs. Buy RAM separately and install it yourself. Any competent IT tech can install memory within minutes. For a device like a mobile workstation, or a full-sized workstation, this could save hundreds of dollars per machine.
What About SSDs?
How can we forget about SSDs? Well, we can’t and we shouldn’t.
Let’s not forget about SSDs, either. Because memory has had significant price decreases, that means SSDs have fallen in price, too. Old laptops could undoubtedly use an SSD upgrade. This is another space where businesses could save money. Rather than buying a whole new laptop for an end-user, replace their mechanical drive with an SSD. That will make that device feel entirely new again.
Given all this, we don’t expect OEMs to drop prices at all. OEMs, like HP and Dell, typically buy components like memory and SSDs in large batches. They can’t merely discount costs now because the rest of the market has dropped prices. Laptops and desktops will continue their normal pricing flow.
We can expect that OEMs and smaller systems builders can buy a stockpile of memory now and sit on it for use later. The profit made on each device sold for any OEM is razor-thin. If systems builders have a chance to buy parts at a reduced rate now to bring them higher returns later, they will do it.
This is another reason we say go ahead and buy your memory upgrades now. It’s nice to think that RAM prices will continue to drop until the end of the year, but there is no guarantee on that. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Buy your RAM now.
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