RAM Prices Are Forcing a Rethink of the PC Refresh Cycle

Adapting standard life cycle planning to current memory market realities

If your next hardware refresh budget was set a year ago, it's already out of date.

Memory prices have veered sharply off course, upending standard corporate projections. Industry trackers outline a stark trajectory:

• Consumer PC DRAM – PC DRAM contract prices were projected to increase by more than 100% quarter over quarter in Q1 2026, representing the largest quarterly increase recorded for the segment as memory demand continued to outpace supply.
• Enterprise 64GB DDR5 RDIMMs – Demand for 64GB DDR5 RDIMMs accelerated throughout 2026, contributing to sustained upward pricing pressure across the enterprise DRAM market.
• Server DRAM – According to TrendForce, server DRAM contract prices were forecast to rise by around 90% quarter over quarter in Q1 2026, the largest quarterly increase on record, followed by a further 58%-63% increase in Q2 2026.

For anyone planning a PC fleet refresh, that changes the landscape. A refresh model built on a fixed calendar, replacing everything every three or four years regardless of condition, assumes that hardware costs are roughly predictable year to year. This assumption no longer holds.

How time-based refresh cycles restrict flexibility right now

The traditional model treats every device's age as the deciding factor. But age alone doesn't tell you whether a device is actually holding back an employee, or whether it's still performing perfectly well and simply due for replacement on paper. In a market where new hardware costs meaningfully more than it did in previous years, that distinction warrants closer attention when organizations plan PC refreshes. Paying a premium to replace a device that wasn't underperforming is a cost most organizations can no longer absorb without justification.

What a performance-based model looks like instead

This is where consistent, objective benchmarking earns its keep. Rather than refreshing by date, IT teams can use benchmark data to answer a more useful set of questions:

• Which devices in the fleet are genuinely underperforming against a defined baseline, and which are still performing adequately
• Whether a full refresh is necessary or whether a partial refresh, upgrading only the devices that need it, gets most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost
• Whether new or refurbished hardware, benchmarked against the same standard, meets the performance bar for a given role
• Which OEM configurations deliver the most performance per dollar, evaluated on vendor-neutral evidence rather than spec sheets alone

None of these are new capabilities. It is the same benchmarking discipline organizations have used for procurement and validation for years, now applied to a decision that has suddenly become far more expensive to get wrong.

Where this leaves IT teams

While memory prices may not stay this high forever, they are also unlikely to fall back to where they were within the current budget cycle. Organizations that can show, with evidence, exactly which devices need replacing and which don't are in a stronger position than those replacing based solely on a calendar. This is a performance-based life cycle model, and it is a more defensible way to spend a hardware budget in a market like this one.

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To see how UL Solutions computer performance benchmarking data can support a performance-based refresh strategy. You can explore the Procyon® suite, part of ULTRUS® software, at benchmarks.ul.com/Procyon.