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An extra bit of memory can breathe new life into your computer and make heavy tasks like gaming and multitasking a breeze. Luckily, RAM deals are pretty easy to get hold of, as it’s one of the cheapest components you can buy for your computer. However, there are many choices on the market and so we’ve put together this handy guide to give you a good head start on finding the best cheap RAM out there right now.
Even if you’re thinking about buying a brand new Mac, MacBook, or pre-built PC this year instead of building your own setup, you can often save some money by not paying extra for an upgraded model of RAM. This can be quite an expensive way to add memory, and instead it’s much cheaper to buy RAM separately, especially if you can find the best RAM deals, as we’ve found below.
We update prices on this page daily, so it’s worth bookmarking and checking back regularly to make sure you don’t see a RAM kit at the price you want. RAM itself can usually be found quite cheaply around major seasonal sale events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, although there are always some great deals at specialty stores at any time of the year too.
Best DDR5 RAM deal
If you want the fastest and latest RAM configuration on the market, you should spring for a set of DDR5 sticks. These don’t normally come cheap, but Corsair’s latest iteration of its well-known Vengeance series of RAM is actually pretty competitively priced. While it’s not the fastest set of DDR5 RAM on the market right now, it’s still pretty damn fast with a base clock speed of 4800MHz. It runs pretty cool too, so there’s plenty of potential headroom if you want to overclock it alongside your other components.
Best DDR4 RAM deal
Corsair’s Vengeance series of RAM has been knocking around for many years and it’s always been a solid choice no matter your use case. The 3,000 MHz RGB variant in particular is a fantastic all-rounder for those with motherboards that can only support DDR4 RAM, as it comes with a very reasonable price tag considering you get RGB and a beefy heatsink. While DDR5 has surpassed this generation in terms of speed, 3,000MHz is still fast enough for gaming right now – and is more widely supported by a wide range of motherboards.
Best budget gaming RAM deal
DDR4 RAM was pretty pricey when it first came out a few years ago, but it’s now possible to get the standard 2×8 GB configuration on a fairly low budget. If you’re not bothered by bells and whistles like RGB, the Corsair Vengeance LPX is a good choice. Not only is it widely stocked at most specialty retailers, but its reasonable price, low-profile build, and number of clock speed variants make it a truly reliable buy for both upgraders and builders on a budget. It’s not quite as fast as DDR5 RAM, of course, but it will be more than enough for most builds for years to come.
Best RAM deal for gaming laptops
While some gaming laptops are starting to use DDR5 RAM, the vast majority of mobile gaming rigs still run on DDR4 compatible motherboards, meaning you probably want to opt for some of these commonly available sticks (be sure to check your model). Our choice for a solid, reliable and reasonably cheap RAM upgrade for gaming laptops is the Kingston HyperX Impact series. These low-profile sticks draw just 1.2V of power, but are still capable of clock speeds of 2666 or 3200MHz, depending on which variant you choose. With great plug-and-play compatibility, the Kingston HyperX Impact works with both Intel and AMD-based gaming laptops without the need for BIOS tweaks.
Best laptop RAM deal
MacBooks aren’t the only laptops you can add extra memory to. As long as they aren’t glued together like a Surface Laptop, upgrading your RAM is one of the easiest things you can do to improve your notebook’s performance. TimeTic makes relatively inexpensive kits of Hynix IC RAM that can seriously increase your memory capacity.
Best Mac RAM Deal
Are you running on an old Mac? Most newer models have soldered-in memory and are therefore not upgradeable, but some older models are upgradeable (usually those released before 2013). Generally, these older models require DDR3 RAM – which isn’t the newest or fastest RAM on the market, but thankfully is still fairly widely available. Our choice for RAM upgrades on older Mac models are Crucial’s DDR3 kits. Not only are they reasonably priced, but Crucial is a reliable brand that offers a number of choices for both 16GB and 32GB memory kits – more than enough for older Macs that are still in daily use.
What is RAM?
RAM is an abbreviation for Random-Aaccess memory. It is one of the fundamental pieces of the computer puzzle alongside the processor (or CPU) and classic storage (usually thought of as ROM for Rdead Oonly memory).
RAM is needed to facilitate data transfer to and from your system storage (which can be a hard disk or solid state drive). The processor is the one that does the calculations, the computations, etc. and just next to it is the cache, which is a super fast version of RAM, but only available in small amounts (a few hundred MB at most).
Then comes RAM (usually around 16GB on standard computers) and beyond that system storage. The farther they are from the processor, the cheaper they are per unit of storage and the slower they become.