Is it a good time to buy RAM right now?

A plain-English read on the current DDR shortage, where prices are heading, and how to use price history to buy the dip.

The short answer

During a shortage this severe, timing matters more than the specific kit. The spread between the cheapest and most expensive vendor for the same part can exceed 20% in a single week, and that spread moves daily. The practical play is to pick the kit that fits your platform, then watch its price history for the dip.

What to actually look at

Ignore headline speed in isolation. A DDR5-6000 CL30 kit and a DDR5-6400 CL36 kit can perform within a rounding error of each other in real workloads, yet differ meaningfully in price. Compare on $/GB first, then filter by the profile your board supports.

Watch the 30-day trend column on the homepage. A kit that is already down 8–10% off its recent high is usually a better entry than one still climbing, even if the climbing kit's sticker looks similar today.

Watch the history, not the homepage

Rather than refreshing prices, check a kit's price-history chart every few days and compare today's price to its all-time low. We record a new point for every vendor, every day — a real dip stands out fast against a run of daily history, so you catch it without living on the site.