Market analysis
Written from prices we actually observed, not forecasts we made up. Every figure in these pieces renders live from the same database that powers our alerts.
RAM vs SSD Upgrade in 2026: What Each One Actually Costs
Every page answering this prices one component for 2026 and the other for 2025 — or prints no prices at all. Here are both, observed at one retailer on one day, and the gap is far narrower than the advice implies.
Read →DDR4 Prices in 2026: What a New Desktop Kit Really Costs
Published DDR4 figures start several times below any new kit we can observe, because that basket is eBay modules and refurbished server DIMMs. Here is the new-retail price, kit by kit, against a standard whose wafer allocation has been cut.
Read →Best Value NVMe SSD 2026: What a Gigabyte Actually Costs, Drive by Drive
Five published cheapest-SSD lists, four different winners, and every one of them below our cheapest name-brand gigabyte — because the top of a price-sorted list is a different class of drive. Here is the comparison with capacity and interface held still.
Read →RAM Brand Comparison 2026: What the Badge Actually Costs Per Gigabyte
Every published brand ranking compares catalogues, not kits — which is why three of them price the same two brands 8%, 13% and 14% apart on the same day. Here is the comparison with capacity, transfer rate and CAS latency all held still.
Read →DDR5 Speed Premium 2026: What Faster Memory Actually Costs
Every buying guide says to check whether the speed is worth the premium, and none of them says what the premium is. We measured it: the gap between two kits of identical true latency is now wider than the gap between the grades.
Read →RAM and SSD Price Per Gigabyte by Capacity in 2026: When Bigger Is Cheaper, and When It Is Not
Bigger kits are supposed to be cheaper per gigabyte. On memory that stopped being true this year — 64GB DDR5 carries a 9.2% per-gigabyte penalty on a 2,609-module basket. On storage the discount is real and it stops at 2TB.
Read →SSD Prices in 2026: What the Shelf Actually Did, and What to Pay Now
Every page about SSD prices this year is a forecast, and they disagree by a factor of ten. Here is the narrower answer: the observed price per gigabyte at US retail, how far our index moved, and a per-capacity budget.
Read →RAM Price Alerts in 2026: How to Set a Threshold That Actually Fires
Set a watch at 2% and you will wait forever: nothing smaller than the engine floor exists to alert on. The four gates a move has to pass, the two floors underneath your number, and the four settings worth using.
Read →DDR4 vs DDR5 Prices in 2026: What a Gigabyte Really Costs
Published DDR4 figures ranged from $3.06 to $8.75 per gigabyte on the same day. Here is the comparison done with named kits, named retailers and a date on every price — plus why the socket usually decides it, not the price.
Read →SSD Price Tracker Guide: Reading the 2026 Storage Market Like a Procurement Buyer
Five rules for reading the storage market: price the gigabyte not the drive, treat contract prices as a different number, and check the spread on identical parts. Each one attached to a live figure from our own database.
Read →Why Are RAM Prices So High? What Our Tracked Data Actually Shows
DDR5 runs roughly 85x the price per gigabyte of NVMe flash, and the same 64GB kit can differ by 13% between two retailers on the same day. What our observed prices show — and what they do not.
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