Prices for various PC parts often have a huge range, depending on items quality, performance, and availability. Some CPUs are $100, some are $1000, and some cannot be bought for love or money. Some other items have a much smaller range of prices, and this can be seen when we look at PC memory and storage (including RAM and hard drives). Memory and storage are offered by a large number of sellers, and thus the options are competitively priced. Most options that are similar in speed and capacity tend to be close to each other in price, making it easy to track and compare.

With time, long-term and short-term computer memory always sees a downward trend in price, with the only exception being when a factory is burned or flooded or something. Once certain items (or capacities) can be reliably found for a particular price, we overhaul our memory recommendations to recommend better/larger components, for the same price.

Along those lines, let us take a look at some recently changed recommendations:

SSDs

SSDs have been seeing price drops continuously as long as I can remember, from the unimaginable days of $1000/GB (yes, $1000, no typo), to the current ~$0.10/GB goodness. Who knows? Maybe a reader from 2024 will be enjoying SSDs at $0.03/GB, eh? With prices this low, SSDs at very low capacities can now be recommended at the cheapest tiers. For a similar reason (it is cheap!), 500GB and 1TB SSDs can now be recommended at earlier tiers.

Unfortunately, we still cannot recommend 4TB SSDs, since the prices for those are still very wacky.

SSD Changelog:

• • “No SSD” option removed from all tiers
  • 240GB SSD now lowest capacity listed
  • ‘Fair’ tier (and above) upgraded to 500GB as default recommendation
  • ‘Outstanding’ tier (and above) upgraded to 1TB as default recommendation

HDDs

500GB and 1TB HDD prices are no longer reasonable, compared to prices for 2TB. If you are going for maximum savings, then a cheap SSD offers better cost savings than a 500GB HDD. And saving $5 or $10 by going for a $40-45 1TB drive is not logical when some models of 2TB drive are available for $50. Also: Did you know that there are 12TB and even 16TB drives that came out recently?

HDD Changelog:

• • “No HDD” option added for Destitute and Poor. (With the power of Chuck Norris, your PC CAN run even if the HDD is Missing in Action!)
  • 500GB and 1TB recommendations removed for countries where the price is no longer logical
  • 2TB now lowest capacity in countries where the price is logical
  • ‘Very Good’ -> ‘Outstanding’ tiers now recommend 2/4/6TB drives
  • ‘Extremist’ and ‘Monstrous’ tiers now recommend 6/12/16TB drives

RAM

RAM prices have been more steady than HDDs or SSDs, and the only change here is that we now recommend 8GB one tier earlier. We did receive suggestions about looking into adding quad-channel RAM to certain tiers (and yes, I watched this video), but that will take a bit more research before we reach a decision about it.

RAM Changelog:

• • ‘Modest’ tier upgraded to 8GB as default recommendation
  • We are actively looking into changing some RAM options to quad channel kits (maybe for 32/64GB), but this requires more research

All of the changes above for storage and memory are live in the USA list, and will roll out to other countries over the upcoming days, wherever the prices are logical.