TL;DR: Black Friday 2026 is November 27, and for GPUs and RAM it will not save you money — memory prices are rising roughly 20% per quarter, so the “sale” price in five weeks will likely exceed today’s regular price. Buy VRAM and RAM now; wait only on PSUs, cases, and coolers.

	GPUs & RAM	SSDs	PSUs, cases, coolers
Verdict	Buy now	Watch for dips, buy on one	Wait for Nov 27
Why	Prices rising monthly; used cards never get sale pricing	Volatile: $369–$640 swings on the same drive in 2026	No memory content, so the shortage doesn’t touch them
The catch	Paying today’s inflated price still beats December’s	A “deal” may just be last month’s regular price	Savings are real but small — $20–$50 per part

Honest take: In a normal year, waiting five weeks for Black Friday is free money. In 2026 it’s a losing trade on anything containing DRAM, GDDR, or NAND — which is exactly the hardware a local AI build is made of.

Every November, the same question lands in home-lab forums: should I hold my GPU and RAM purchases for Black Friday? In 2024 the answer was usually yes. In 2026 the components that matter for local AI — the GPU, the memory, and to a lesser degree the SSD — are all repricing upward on a monthly cadence, and no analyst tracking the memory market expects that to stop before the end of 2027. This article puts numbers on both sides of the trade: what Black Friday actually delivered last year, and what prices have done in the weeks leading into this one. If you’re mid-build, check what your target models actually need in the VRAM calculator before deciding which rows below apply to you.

What Black Friday actually delivered in 2025

Last year’s sale is the best available preview, and the real discounts were far smaller than the banner ads implied. From PC Gamer’s and HotHardware’s live deal tracking during Black Friday 2025:

Black Friday 2025 deal	Sale price	Previous price	Real discount
MSI RTX 5070 12GB (Walmart)	$499.99	$582.99	$83 (14%)
MSI RTX 5070 Ti 16GB (Newegg)	$729.99	$809.49	$79.50 (10%)
ASUS Prime RTX 5070 12GB (Amazon)	$527	~$613	14%
MSI RTX 5060 8GB (Amazon)	$279.99	~$341	18%
Alienware Aurora prebuilt w/ RTX 5080	—	—	$700 off system

Three patterns worth noticing. First, the discounts clustered on mid-range cards — nothing meaningful appeared on the RTX 5090 or 5080, the cards with the most expensive GDDR7 on board. Second, the typical real saving was $30–$100 per card, not the “up to 72% off” that retailers advertised across mixed categories. Third, the biggest absolute savings were on prebuilt systems, where the discount comes out of the integrator’s margin rather than the component’s cost.

That was 2025, before memory contract prices went vertical. There is no reason to expect 2026’s sale to be more generous, and one structural reason to expect it to be worse: the bill-of-materials cost of anything with VRAM or DRAM in it is higher now than it was when retailers set their fall 2025 promotions.

The sale is in five weeks. The price increases are monthly.

The core problem with waiting is direction of travel. Here is what the parts of a local AI build have done across 2026, using tracked street prices rather than MSRPs:

Component	Earlier 2026	October 2026	Direction
Used RTX 3090 24GB	~$1,010 (March)	$1,456–$1,558 (Oct 20)	+~50% in 7 months
32GB DDR5-6000 kit (cheapest)	~$400 (August)	$449.97 (Oct 14)	+12% in ~10 weeks
Samsung 990 Pro 2TB	$369.99 (June dip)	$386–$410 (Oct 17–19)	Volatile, floor rising
RTX 5090	$1,999 MSRP (never sold at it)	$7,000–$9,000 (Oct 27)	First-party retail sold out; third parties $8,600+
GMKtec EVO-X2 128GB (Strix Halo)	~$2,000 (launch)	$3,649 (Oct 22)	Flat since September — not falling
NVIDIA DGX Spark (128GB/4TB)	$3,999 (launch)	$6,950 (Oct 19)	+74%; 64GB OEM tier opened at $4,999

The RAM number is the one to internalize. Tom’s Hardware’s price index recorded the cheapest 32GB DDR5-6000 kit at $449.97 on October 14, 2026 — up from about $400 in August, and roughly four times what equivalent kits cost in mid-2025. That is not a blip retailers can discount their way around. Gartner’s February 2026 forecast called for combined DRAM and SSD prices to rise about 130% by the end of 2026, pushing average PC prices up ~17%, and Gartner’s analysts now say the shortage could run through the end of 2027. Bernstein’s tracking has memory chip prices up nearly 20% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2026, with another increase expected in Q4 — which is the quarter Black Friday sits in.

Run that forward: if contract DRAM rises another high-single-digit percentage between now and late November, a 10–15% Black Friday “discount” on a RAM kit lands you at roughly today’s everyday price — and that’s the optimistic case where a discount appears at all. The pessimistic case is what UK and US system builders are already telling customers: memory and SSD discounts this year will be smaller than usual, because nobody discounts a product they can sell at full price the moment it’s in stock. The deeper background on why fab capacity went to HBM instead of DDR5 is in our DDR5 and SSD price surge explainer — and no, DDR4 is not the escape hatch anymore either.

GPUs: mid-range token discounts, and a used market that doesn’t do Black Friday

New-card pricing is being squeezed from the component side. TrendForce data (via Tom’s Hardware) puts the 2GB GDDR7 modules used across the RTX 50 series at about $20 per module — a 5090 carries 16 of them — and Tom’s Hardware documented RTX 50-series prices jumping up to 30% in South Korea in October, with the RTX 5090 passing $5,100 there. NVIDIA notified board partners of a further ~$300 increase on the 5090 back in May, and in the US the card has vanished from first-party retail at anything resembling list price. Cards whose VRAM bill is that large do not go on sale; at best they reappear in stock.

Where Black Friday will produce real (if modest) GPU deals is the same place it did in 2025: the mid-range. A RTX 5060 Ti 16GB currently streets at $679–$805 against a $429 MSRP; a $50–$80 Black Friday rebate on that card is plausible and worth taking if 16GB covers your models — see the full GPU buying guide for what 16GB actually runs. But a possible $80 saving has to be weighed against five more weeks of the same drift that took the card from $679 toward $805 during September and October.

The used market — where the best VRAM-per-dollar in local AI lives — has no Black Friday at all. eBay sellers don’t run doorbusters. A used RTX 3090 tracked at ~$1,010 in March 2026, ~$1,252 in September, and $1,456–$1,558 (ResalePrices fair range, 320 listings) on October 20. That’s roughly $60–$75 of appreciation per month all year. Waiting from late October to late November for a sale that cannot apply to used hardware has, on 2026’s trend line, cost buyers about $70 per month of waiting. The same logic holds for the used RTX 4090 ($2,271–$2,419 in eBay sold prices as of October 24; asking prices run higher) — our dual 3090 vs used 4090 breakdown covers which of those to pick at the $3,000 mark.

One honest caveat on the other side: used prices are not a law of physics. If the 50 SUPER series had launched with 24GB cards this fall, used Ampere prices might have softened — but that launch slipped to Q3 2026 and then further, and with no new consumer silicon due before 2028, the supply of used 24GB cards is fixed while demand keeps growing. The trend has one visible direction.

128GB mini PCs and DGX-class boxes: same rule as GPUs

The machines that carried most of this site’s reader purchases this fall are the 128GB unified-memory boxes — and they are the most memory-dense products on this page. The GMKtec EVO-X2 128GB launched near $2,000 and has sat at $3,649 since September; the Beelink GTR9 Pro is $4,349 on a 35-day pre-order; NVIDIA’s DGX Spark went from $3,999 at launch to $6,950 on NVIDIA’s own Marketplace in October, and the ASUS Ascent GX10 from $2,999 to $5,999. The only new entry that lowers the price of admission is the 64GB GB10 OEM tier at $4,999 that opened on October 23 — a product tier, not a sale.

There is no Black Friday precedent for any of these; most did not exist last November. Our read is the same as for GPUs: if you need one, the Strix Halo guide and the Halo vs DGX Spark comparison tell you which, and today’s price is the one to plan on. The one stable number in this category is AMD’s own Ryzen AI Halo dev kit at $3,999 at Micro Center, which has not moved since June.

SSDs: the one memory part where waiting can pay

NAND is caught in the same AI-datacenter squeeze as DRAM — flash is roughly 90% of an SSD’s cost — but SSD retail pricing in 2026 has been volatile rather than monotonic, which creates genuine windows. The Samsung 990 Pro 2TB peaked at $639.99 on April 8, 2026 (CamelCamelCamel’s tracked Amazon high), dipped to $369.99 at Newegg in mid-June, sold around $390 in August, and sat at $386–$410 across Amazon and B&H on October 17–19.

That 40% April-to-June swing is the pattern to exploit. SSDs are the one component on this page where a Black Friday listing might genuinely undercut today’s price — a return to the $370 floor is plausible as retailers compete on a visible SKU. The strategy: know the floor ($370 for the 990 Pro 2TB), set a price alert, and buy any dip at or near it, whether that dip arrives on November 27 or on a random Tuesday. What you should not do is assume the floor will hold through 2027 — the same trackers show the lows getting shallower as the NAND contract price climbs underneath them.

What genuinely goes on sale

The components with zero memory content are having a normal year, and will have a normal Black Friday:

• Power supplies — a 1000–1200W ATX 3.1 unit routinely took $20–$40 off in 2025’s sale and should again. If you’re sizing for a multi-GPU rig, the PSU sizing guide tells you what wattage to shop for.
• Cases and coolers — mature products, heavy competition, real 15–25% discounts.
• Prebuilt systems — the sleeper option in 2026. The integrator bought its DRAM and SSDs on contract months ago, so a discounted prebuilt can effectively sell you memory below today’s retail. 2025’s best absolute discounts ($700 off an RTX 5080 Alienware) were here, and system builders are already steering buyers this way for 2026. Check the actual RAM and GPU spec against the three-budget build guide before assuming the bundle is a deal.

What to actually buy

Prices as of October 2026, all verified in the sections above:

Your situation	The move	Price	Where
You need 24GB VRAM for local LLMs	Used RTX 3090 — now, not Nov 27	$1,456–$1,558	Check price
16GB covers your models and budget is tight	RTX 5060 Ti 16GB — buy a real dip if one appears, don’t hold out for it	$679–$805	Check price
Your build needs RAM	32GB DDR5-6000 — buy the capacity you need today, skip the “upgrade later” plan	from ~$450	Check price
You need 128GB for 70B–120B models	GMKtec EVO-X2 128GB — same logic as GPUs, buy now	$3,649	Check price
You need model storage	Samsung 990 Pro 2TB — set an alert, buy at ≤$390	$386–$410	Check price
You need a PSU, case, or cooler	Wait for November 27 — this is where the real discounts land	varies	—
Not sure you’ll use local AI enough to buy at these prices	Rent first and measure your actual usage	3090 from $0.07/hr	Vast.ai

The last row is worth taking seriously in a year like this. At today’s prices, a used 3090 costs the equivalent of ~20,000 hours of renting the same card. If you’re not certain local AI will stick for you, renting through the price spike and buying when (if) the market normalizes in 2027–2028 is a defensible plan — the full math is in RunPod vs local GPU: rent or buy.

FAQ

Will the RTX 5090 or 5080 get a Black Friday discount?

Almost certainly not a real one. These cards carry the most GDDR7 in the lineup at ~$20 per 2GB module, their prices rose up to 30% in some markets in October, and the 5090 is sold out at US first-party retail. The realistic best case is a brief restock at street price. If a listing shows a dramatic “discount” on a 5090, check what reference price the percentage is measured against.

Will RAM prices drop for Black Friday 2026?

No forecaster tracking the DRAM market expects it. Contract prices rose ~20% in Q3 2026 with another increase expected in Q4 (Bernstein), and Gartner projects the squeeze to run through the end of 2027. A Black Friday RAM “deal” in this market means a kit briefly selling at what it cost in September.

Is it worth waiting for Cyber Monday instead?

The same logic applies — Cyber Monday is three days later on the same rising cost curve, and in 2025 the GPU deals were substantially identical across the whole Black Friday–Cyber Monday window. Pick parts by price target, not by calendar date.

Should I just wait until 2027 for everything?

For RAM, maybe — if your current machine works, Gartner’s own timeline says relief could start appearing in late 2027, and unlike GPUs, RAM doesn’t earn you anything while you wait. For used GPUs, waiting has cost about $70/month all year with no new supply coming before 2028. Our advice stands: buy the VRAM you need when you need it, rent while undecided, and never buy at panic prices for a workload you haven’t measured.

Sources

1. 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM now costs $450 — Tom’s Hardware ($449.97 cheapest kit, Oct 14 2026)
2. Gartner: surging memory costs will reduce global PC and smartphone shipments in 2026 — Gartner press release (+130% DRAM+SSD by end of 2026, PC prices +17%)
3. Memory price hikes will kill off budget PCs and smartphones — The Register (Gartner: shortage could last through end of 2027)
4. Black Friday graphics card deals 2025 tracking — PC Gamer (RTX 5070 $499.99, 5070 Ti $729.99 live deals)
5. Best Black Friday GPU deals 2025 — HotHardware (ASUS 5070 14% off, MSI 5060 18% off)
6. RTX 50 series prices jump up to 30% in South Korea; $20 GDDR7 modules — Tom’s Hardware (TrendForce GDDR7 module pricing)
7. ResalePrices — RTX 3090 used market tracking ($1,456–$1,558 fair range, $1,533 avg, 320 listings, Oct 20 2026)
8. ResalePrices — RTX 4090 used market tracking (~$2,500 market average; $2,999 median ask via DealHunter, Oct 20 2026)
9. Samsung 990 Pro 2TB Amazon price history — CamelCamelCamel ($639.99 high Apr 8 2026; $386.56–$407.82 Oct 17–19 2026)
10. Samsung 990 Pro 2TB price history — Pangoly (B&H $409.99 Oct 19 2026)
11. 42% slashed off Samsung’s 990 Pro 2TB, now $369 — Tom’s Hardware (June 2026 floor price)
12. Gaming PC Black Friday 2026: what’s worth buying — MetaPCS (builder guidance: smaller memory/SSD discounts expected, prebuilts favored)
13. NVIDIA DGX Spark price (Q4 2026): $6,950 on NVIDIA Marketplace, Oct 19, 2026 — pi3g
14. Ryzen AI Max+ 395 mini PC prices as of Oct 22, 2026 (EVO-X2 $3,649, GTR9 Pro $4,349) — ComputingForGeeks
15. Black Friday graphics card deals 2026 tracking — PC Gamer (late-October read: a “deal” means a return toward MSRP, $30–$100 off inflated street prices)

Recommended Gear

• Used RTX 3090 24GB — $1,456–$1,558; still the VRAM-per-dollar pick, and waiting has cost ~$70/month all year
• RTX 5060 Ti 16GB — $679–$805; the one card class where a modest Black Friday rebate is realistic
• Samsung 990 Pro 2TB — $386–$410; buy any dip at or below $390
• 32GB DDR5-6000 kit — from ~$450; rising ~20%/quarter, so the capacity you need beats the capacity you might want
• GMKtec EVO-X2 128GB — $3,649; the 70B–120B box, flat since September and not expected to dip

Prices verified as of October 14–27, 2026. Memory and GPU prices are moving weekly in this market; check the trackers linked in Sources before purchasing.

Get the numbers before you buy

New GPU and mini-PC benchmarks, VRAM thresholds, and price checks — sent when there's something worth acting on, not on a schedule. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Email address Subscribe