I’m sure you know exactly by now platform upgrade to DDR5 Easier said than done considering RAM prices show no sign of going down in this economy. CPUs and motherboards are cheaper than ever, but you can’t build a new computer without DDR5 RAM. However, you can still make impressive improvements to your PC in 2026. If you’ve been waiting to buy a new graphics card, the current prices aren’t bad at all. In this economy, you can get a great mid-range GPU for around $600, and it’s worth your attention. SSD prices are also inflated right now, but this might be the best window to grab a 2TB Gen4 drive before the shortage gets worse. Finally, if your gaming monitor needs an upgrade, OLED monitors are more affordable right now. You don’t need to spend more than $350-$450 for a decent 27″ 1440p 240Hz OLED display, which was hard to imagine last year. Your AM5 upgrade can wait, but you don’t need to skip other upgrades you’ve been thinking about for years.
Finally, I can call OLED monitors at a reasonable price
Within two years, prices had fallen sharply
I remember mid-2024 $750 OLED monitors being called affordable. Those 27″ 1440p QD-OLED displays were cheaper than the $1,000 models, but hardly “cheap” by any standard. Two years from now, you can buy a 27″ 1440p 240Hz QD-OLED monitor from Dell, Samsung, Acer, or AOC for just $350. That’s what I paid for my IPS monitor in 2021, and it’s hard to believe that starting prices for OLED monitors have improved so much in just two years. Most of them are newly released cost-effective QD-OLEDs The Samsung Display sports panels and overall performance has been excellent in most conditions. Unlike what we’ve seen with OLED displays in the past, availability hasn’t been an issue on many of these models.
The Switch from IPS to OLED monitor not small. You go from a panel that suffers from backlight leakage and a poor contrast ratio to a panel with pure blacks and instant response times. Even without proper DisplayHDR 400 or 600 certification, HDR performance is generally outstanding. These entry-level QD-OLEDs aren’t perfect, to be fair, as direct lighting can make dark scenes look purple instead of perfect black. Also, low peak brightness, text fringing, and aging ports on some models can be a bit of a letdown. However, most of these disadvantages can be mitigated by controlling the lighting in your room, using software to improve text readability, and opting for a model with better connectivity options.
For $350, you get a significant upgrade over your IPS gaming monitor without having to settle for entry-level resolutions or refresh rates. An affordable OLED monitor on the market is one of the best upgrades you can make to your gaming setup. If you’ve been waiting for OLED prices to drop, they probably have, so it’s time to act.
- Resolution
-
2160×1440
- Screen Size
-
27 inches
- Brand
-
Alienware
- Max. Refresh rate
-
240 Hz
- Response time
-
0.03 ms
- Logins
-
2x HDMI 2.1, 1x DP 1.4
NVMe SSDs have doubled in price, but they’re still affordable
Things are still not as bad as they could be
The current wafer shortage has not only affected RAM prices. SSD prices have also risen over the past eight months. 2TB Gen4 drives, which cost just $120 last September, were selling for $300 a few months ago and recently dropped to $250. The Crucial P310, for example, costs about $180 for the 1TB model. These prices are far from ideal, but are relatively reasonable compared to DDR5 prices. You may not be building a new PC this year, but you can still buy a 1TB or even 2TB NVMe SSD to expand your storage.
NVMe prices have been stable lately, as we’ve seen with RAM prices. However, there’s no telling when things might get worse, and they certainly won’t get better for at least the next few years. Unlike RAM, running with a smaller capacity won’t reduce your build’s performance. At around $180, a 1TB drive isn’t “cheap”, but it can save you from memory problems while you wait for the market to correct itself. Gen5 SSDs add nothing to your performanceso these drives are best left alone, especially in this economy.
Graphics cards don’t cost much, all things considered
It may be the right time to buy
You’d think GPUs would be one of the most unaffordable components on the market right now. Given the rapid increase in memory prices and the demand for AI acceleration, even consumer graphics cards may not be affordable right now. In fact, this is the case with the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080 and RTX 5090. Top-tier cards have always been a poor value for most players, and current prices are well above MSRP.
However, once you look at the mid-range segment, you’ll realize that GPUs like the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 aren’t a bad deal at all. You can get the former for around $630 and the latter for around $580 on Amazon. The RTX 5070 excels at 1440p once it allows upscaling of ray tracing and path tracing, and advanced frame generation keeps things smooth despite frame spurts. The cheaper RX 9070 is 10% faster in rasterized performance, but lags behind in multi-ray-traced and path-traced games. The best part is that it can be designed for any of these cards 4K gaming in optimized settings and older titles.
If you were expecting to buy a mid-range card for 1440p and 4K gaming in 2026, I believe the prices for GPUs have finally stabilized. Waiting for things to improve could backfire, and even if prices fall, they probably won’t change drastically from what we’re seeing now.
- Memory Clock Speed
-
1750 MHz
- Architecture
-
Blackwell
- Process
-
TSMC 4N
- Shader units
-
6144
- Beam accelerators/cores
-
48
- AI accelerators/cores
-
192
Not all PC upgrades are available in mid-2026
Building a DDR5 gaming PC might be crazy in 2026, but you can still upgrade other parts of your setup. A new graphics card to enjoy modern titles in 1440p and even 4K, a new OLED monitor to enhance that gaming experience, and more NVMe memory are now perfectly available. You’ll have to go with an entry-level OLED display or a 1TB drive, but things aren’t as bad as they seem. Additionally, you may have a buying window to wait before seeing more price increases.
