A little more memory can breathe new life into your computer and make heavy tasks like gaming and multitasking a breeze. Fortunately, RAM deals are pretty easy to come by, as it’s one of the cheapest components you can buy for your computer. However, there are plenty of options on the market, so we’ve put together this handy guide to give you a head start when it comes to finding the best cheap RAM out there right now.
Even if you were thinking of buying a new Mac, MacBook, or pre-built PC instead of building your own setup this year, you can often save a little money by not paying more for an upgraded RAM model. This can be a pretty expensive way to add memory, and it’s much cheaper to buy RAM separately, especially if you can find the best RAM deals like the ones we found below.
We update prices daily on this page, so it’s worth bookmarking and checking regularly if you can’t find a RAM kit at the price you want. RAM itself is usually found quite cheap at big seasonal sales events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, although there are always some great deals available at any time of year from specialist retailers.
The best DDR5 RAM offer
If you want the fastest and latest RAM configuration on the market, you will have to go for a set of DDR5 memories. They usually aren’t cheap, but Corsair’s latest version of its popular Vengeance RAM series is quite competitively priced. While it’s not the fastest DDR5 RAM set on the market right now, it’s still plenty fast with a base clock speed of 4800 MHz. It also runs quite well, so there’s a lot of potential headroom if you’re looking to overclock it alongside your other components.
The best DDR4 RAM offer
Corsair’s Vengeance series of RAM has been available for many years and is always a solid choice, regardless of your use case. The 3000MHz RGB variant in particular is a fantastic all-rounder for those with motherboards that only support DDR4 RAM, as it’s really reasonably priced considering you get RGB and a beefy heatsink. While DDR5 has surpassed this generation in terms of speed, 3000 MHz is still plenty fast for gaming right now and is more compatible with a lot of motherboards.
Best budget gaming RAM deal
DDR4 RAM was quite expensive when it first appeared a few years ago, but it is now possible to get the standard 2x8GB configuration on a fairly low budget. If you don’t care about creature comforts like RGB, the Corsair Vengeance LPX is a great option. Not only is it widely available at most specialty retailers, but its reasonable price, low-profile build, and number of clock speed variants make it a really reliable purchase for both upgraders and those building with a shoestring budget. Of course, it’s not as fast as DDR5 RAM, but it will be more than enough for most builds in the coming years.
Best RAM deal for gaming laptops
While some gaming laptops are starting to adopt DDR5 RAM, the vast majority of mobile gaming rigs still run on DDR4-compatible motherboards, meaning that probably I want to go with a pair of these widely available clubs (although definitely check your model). Our pick for a solid, reliable, and fairly affordable RAM upgrade for gaming laptops is the Kingston HyperX Impact series. These low-profile devices only consume 1.2V of power, but are still capable of clock speeds of 2666 or 3200 MHz, depending on which variant you choose. With excellent plug-and-play compatibility, Kingston HyperX Impact will work with Intel and AMD-based gaming laptops without the need for BIOS adjustments.
Best Laptop RAM Deal
MacBooks aren’t the only laptops you can add extra memory to. As long as they’re not glued together, like a Surface Laptop, upgrading the RAM is one of the easiest things you can do to improve your laptop’s performance. TimeTic makes relatively inexpensive Hynix IC RAM kits that could seriously increase memory capacity.
The best RAM deal for Mac
Does it run on an old Mac? Most newer models have memory soldered on and therefore cannot be upgraded, but some of the older models can be upgraded (usually those released before 2013). Generally speaking, for these older models you will need DDR3 RAM, which is not the newest or fastest RAM on the market, but fortunately it is still quite available. Our pick for RAM upgrades on legacy Mac models would be Crucial’s DDR3 kits. Not only are they reasonably priced, but Crucial is a trusted brand that offers several options for 16GB and 32GB memory kits, more than enough for older Macs still in daily use.
What is RAM?
RAM is an acronym for Random-TOaccess METERemory. It is one of the fundamental pieces of the computing puzzle along with the processor (or CPU) and classic storage (usually coined as ROM for Rread ohonly METERmemory).
RAM is needed to facilitate the transfer of data to and from your system storage (this can be a hard drive or solid state drive). The processor is the one that does the calculation, the calculations, etc. and right next to it is the cache, which is a super fast version of RAM but is only available in small amounts (up to a couple hundred MB at most).
Next comes RAM (usually around 16GB on standard computers) and beyond that system storage. The further away they are from the processor, the cheaper they will be per storage unit and the slower they will become.
