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 th

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