Is Now a Good Time to Build a PC?

For most people, the answer depends less on the market than on the PC you have now. Memory, SSDs and graphics cards are expensive, and the forecasts say that won't change soon, so waiting for a normal market could mean waiting for years. Find your situation below, then price it out.

Start with what you own

What waiting is likely to get you

Not much, on current evidence. Micron and other memory makers say the shortage will not ease for years. Acer's CEO is the most prominent optimist, and even he puts falling PC prices in the second half of 2027. Neither view has prices dropping in the next six months. Our explainer on the shortage covers why.

The near-term opening is promotions. IDC reported that global PC shipments fell 20.1 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2026, after vendors stocked up early to get ahead of price hikes. Its analyst said sales channels are now wary of holding too much inventory, which could bring some short-term deals, though nothing close to last year's pricing. If a good promotion lands on a part you already planned to buy, take it.

Where the money goes now

The usual build budget no longer holds, because the parts that got expensive are the ones that take most of it. Here is what our catalog showed on November 9:

• Processors are the bargain. The 31 CPUs with both a launch list price and a current street price sell at a median of about 14 percent below list.
• Graphics cards carry the biggest premium. The 12 GeForce RTX 50 cards with a reference list price and a current Best Buy price sell at about 1.5 to 2.7 times that list price, with a median near 1.9.
• Memory can outprice the CPU. Several 32GB DDR5-6000 kits cost more than a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and more than three times a Ryzen 5 9600X.

Settle the graphics card and memory first, since they decide what you can afford, and fill in the rest around them. Our budget guide shows how to divide what is left.

How to buy well in this market

Reuse what you can. DDR5 from an older PC is the best saving there is. A case, power supply or SSD can often carry over too, if the connectors and clearances work.

Price a prebuilt first. System builders bought memory earlier and in bulk, so some prebuilts now undercut the same parts bought separately. Compare the cost of building the same PC, and check that the parts are standard if you plan to upgrade it later.

Look at bundles, then do the math. Tom's Hardware reported in June that retailers, motherboard vendors and CPU brands were pushing bundles of a processor, a motherboard and memory to keep people building. Some cut the memory premium substantially, and others save pocket change. Work out what you are really paying for the memory.

Buy SSD capacity before speed. The jump from a PCIe 3.0 drive to a PCIe 5.0 drive does almost nothing for frame rates. Older drives are not reliably cheaper anymore either, so compare price per terabyte across our SSD listings instead of assuming.

Pick a platform with a future. AMD said in May that it will support AM5 through 2029, which makes it the safer choice if you want a CPU upgrade later. Our AM5 vs LGA 1851 guide covers the tradeoffs, and our look at Zen 6 and Nova Lake covers what is coming.

Don't spend the savings on the motherboard. A mainstream board does the job for most builds.

Check the build before you pay. The builder flags conflicts and tells you what it can't confirm, which matters more when a return is expensive.

When waiting is the right call

Wait if your PC still does what you need. Wait, for now, if you are set on Intel's next platform: Intel said on its latest earnings call that it will share more about Nova Lake at CES in January, and two months costs you nothing if your current PC works.

Don't wait if you are hoping for 2025 pricing. Nothing we have read suggests that is coming.