Black Friday may be a time of rampant consumerism. But I treat it as an opportunity for savvy consumerism—if this period of sales is baked into the system, we may as well take advantage of it. I try to shop smart.
Unfortunately for me (and everyone else), the definition of “smart” is a lot harder to figure out this year.
Memory prices have risen, for starters. In the past few weeks, the cost of DDR5 RAM shot up by 100 percent or more, depending on the kit. DDR4 trailed not far behind. (Yet one more thing AI is ruining.) Module vendors won’t be increasing supply much either, which is apparently causing PC manufacturers to buy up as much as they can. Also, delays in the release of new RAM kits.
Meanwhile, the full effect of the U.S. tariffs looms in the background, too. After the holiday retail rush, experts anticipate that businesses will have run out of goods stockpiled at lower prices.
Which means come 2026, building a PC (or buy any tech gadget) may become financially rough. Painfully expensive RAM is the start. Next will be higher prices for graphics cards, followed by even slower release of new mid-range GPUs. I could see next year and beyond feeling worse than 2021’s dark combo of pandemic shortages and cryptomining.
So I keep asking myself what tech I should buy this month.
Not just PC parts, but everything. I’m weighing what else could quickly change in availability or cost—and how fast it could change. I’m thinking over my small inventory of goods and their ages, and how much life they have left. I’m racking my brain for items I never think about but would hate to replace at exorbitant cost.
Storage is also going up in price, though not as fast as memory. I’m very likely picking up a drive or two during this Black Friday.Foundry
And I’m asking myself what I think would hold up, especially if tech starts to slow or even stagnate with its releases, due to high production costs.
Components usually aren’t cost effective to buy and hold, for example—you lose money for the privilege of holding them in storage. But if they become more expensive and scarce, and their performance holds? That changes the calculus.
So extra RAM and SSDs? With how I operate, I’ll need them down the line.
But my Ryzen 5000-series build that I only use periodically for encodes? I can make that stretch.
As for my laptop situation, where I squeak by with a few old ones ranging from 8 to 11 years old, I’m resigned to eventually moving to Linux until the hardware finally feels too slow.
Honestly, shopping this Black Friday feels like a grocery store run—juggling what I want, what’s good for me, and what will help me use up what I’ve already got on hand.
Deal hunting is less entertaining as a result, but I prefer that to the prospect of paying 50, 100, 140 percent more (or even greater) for items I’ll need in the future.
In this episode of The Full Nerd
In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith answer everyone’s questions during a Q&A blitz. Well, not everyone, since we can’t podcast for the entire day (sadly). But we did tackle the Steam Machine (again), Windows subscriptions, AI making us stupider, and a heck of a lot more. A lot of Xbox talk more.
I may have also dug deep into my thoughts on the Steam Machine. (I’m still so bummed to have missed the discussion last week when Steve and Sean were around.)
Also, we dunked on the idea of Windows as an agentic OS. As is proper.
Willis Lai / Foundry
Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time!
Don’t miss out on our NEW shows too—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now!
And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds.
This week’s pocketful of nerd news
After last week’s Steam Machine announcement, the news feels comparatively quiet—but no less interesting. I definitely uttered a phrase I can’t repeat here after seeing the bit about the tape storage standard and the 100TB of compressed data it will hold.
hito_hiro7265/Twitter
Silverstone is now serving up a smaller dose of nostalgia: I’m still not as sold on this retro case’s looks as the rest of the PCWorld staff—though that’s definitely not Silverstone’s fault. (Some things I just wish to leave in the past.) But if I were to do a sleeper build, it’d be in this littler mATX box.
Respect to an OG: Tape storage isn’t just still alive and kicking, it’s thriving. A new standard that can hold 100TB of compressed data on a 40TB cartridge? Daaaaaaamn.
File under ‘Don’t need it, but want it’: Mike Crider reviewed another nifty Raspberry Pi-powered writer’s gadget. I don’t need it, since I use my phone with a Bluetooth keyboard for distraction-free writing. (Don’t know why it works for me, but it does.) But gosh, this looks so neat.
The internet went spotty because of one file: I’m glad that for once, a major internet outage (this time, it was Cloudflare’s servers that barfed) is due to good old-fashioned, simple human error. I needed a break from all the security attacks this year.
Are NPUs already dead in the water? PCWorld contributor Chris Hoffman neatly dissects the state of “AI PCs” and how GPUs still eclipse NPUs for local AI computing.
“It’s not a matter of if the capacitors will fail, simply when”: Still own a Voodoo 2 card? You may want to perform some elective surgery on it to help preserve its longevity.
Tyler Keillor / Fossil Lab
‘Dinosaur mummies’ would make a great band name: I think it’s metal as heck that living creatures can die and leave impressions in the environment so detailed, you can see the texture of their skin in clay millennia later.
Don’t get scammed during Black Friday! Worried about your loved ones and scams during this holiday shopping period? I got you. You can just pass along these tips on how to stay safe during this chaotic time of year.
Love that efficiency: As someone who watches her utility bills like a hawk, I dig this concept out of the UK: Build a server shed in a person’s yard, then take the heat generated and repurpose it to warm up homes. I’m all about that repurposing.
Heck yeah, I want Firefox custom shortcuts: I love Firefox, and I advocate its usage to anyone who’ll bother listening to me. (Its reader mode is A+.) I also love custom keyboard shortcuts, so I’m looking forward to the marriage of these two things.
Redstone Redstone Redstone: Part of AMD’s new FSR Redstone technology already launched with Call of Duty 7, but more is still to come on December 10. I expect The Full Nerd crew will chew hard on whatever info comes to light.
Uh, guess I’m getting my flu shot ASAP: Chalk this up as a general PSA. In case you were thinking of delaying this year due to previous milder flu seasons (or even outright skipping), perhaps reconsider. As I am.
Catch you all next week—I’ll be in the thick of covering Black Friday sales on PCWorld, in addition to whatever deals we chat about on the show. That includes a live blog on Black Friday proper (November 28) helmed by yours truly, from about 9am to 12pm Pacific (and Brad before that).
If you see nothing but “Yo, get this HDMI cable for $4,” “Hey, this very decent office chair is $130,” and “This insanely badass router dropped to $280,” well, you already know the reason behind my laser focus on boring stuff.
Alaina
Read...
