PCPartPicker
Thanks to PCPartPicker, we can easily see how PC component prices have changed over the last year and a half. After a rough early 2018, prices have fallen quite a bit for most components. We have yet to see how, or even if, the United States’ tariff policies will affect PC component prices. Prices here at Fully Silent PCs vary with current retail prices, with 30% added for all that is necessary for continuing to offer fully assembled silent computers.
CPUs
CPUs generally have cyclical prices as Intel and AMD have been releasing new CPUs on a consistent annual schedule. Intel’s 8th generation Core i5 is shown above. After a peak last December, prices have been somewhat steady through this summer, until another peak last month. This may have something to do with Intel’s current CPU shortage, and the lack of a substantial line of 9th generation CPUs. Prices for AMD’s Ryzen CPUs have been very steady since their release.
GPUs
GPU prices dramatically increased at the start of 2018 after cryptocurrency prices surged in late 2017. They have slowly declined since then, and prices are now about the same as they were before 2018. Above is the Nvidia GTX 1060 6 GB GPU, though other GPUs follow similar trends.
RAM
RAM prices more than doubled from mid 2016 to the end of 2017, as a result of increased global DRAM demand and price fixing by manufacturers. During 2018 prices slowly declined, taking a significant drop during September. RAM prices continue to decline, and are as low as they’ve been since mid 2017. The graph above shows prices since mid 2017 for 16 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM.
SSDs
Solid State Drive prices follow a different path than most other components. There haven’t been any big peaks in pricing recently, and overall, they have slowly declined over time. SSD technologies continue to mature, and manufacturers are adding more and more NAND flash layers on top of each other for economy. SSD prices are approaching half of what they were a couple years ago. Above are prices for 1 TB SSDs. It is a good time to experience the benefit of using only solid state storage; hard disk drives have not seen the same price declines.
