Memory Is Now 40% of a PC’s Parts Bill. Plan Your Refresh Around It.

A year ago, memory and storage were about 15% of what it cost to build a PC. Omdia now puts DRAM and SSDs at nearly 40%.

That one shift explains most of what has happened to PC buying this year. Omdia has notebook, desktop and workstation shipments down 21.2% in the third quarter, to 58.1 million units. IDC, counting differently, has them down 20.1% to 62.7 million. The two firms do not agree on the total. They agree on the direction.

The forecast is not comforting. Omdia expects a 24% fall in the fourth quarter against last year and a further 7% fall across 2027. IDC does not expect pricing to get anywhere near last year’s levels. Micron’s chief executive has said memory supply will stay short through 2027 and 2028.

If your refresh plan was written on last year’s prices, it is out of date. Plenty already have slipped a year. Here is what to do with the gap.

1. Decide which working devices stay another year, and write it down

Most estates have a default: replace at four years, or at five. Defaults made sense when replacement cost was predictable. Now each device deserves a question. Is it still supported by its operating system? Does it have warranty left, or is a repair affordable? Does its owner actually need what a new machine would give them? A device that passes all three can stay in service. Put that decision in the plan, with a date to revisit it.

One caution. Keeping a device does not mean keeping an unsupported operating system. If a Windows 10 machine is on your list, read our piece on what extended security updates actually buy you before you decide.

2. Buy refurbished where the spec allows

For the large part of an estate that runs a browser, a mail client and a document editor, a refurbished business laptop from a trusted supplier will do the same job. We have made this case before when new laptops got 20% pricier. We are not promising refurbished prices will hold, because nobody can. What you can do is check the warranty, the grading standard and the data-erasure evidence, and compare the quote against new.

3. Treat retired kit as an asset, not as waste

When replacement costs rise, so does the value of what you already own. A working device that a shredder would turn into scrap is a device that someone else would pay for, or a device a person without one would be glad to receive. Either way, it should leave your building with a record of what happened to it and a certificate that the data is gone.

This is the part most refresh plans leave blank. They budget carefully for what comes in and say nothing about what goes out.

When the refresh date moves, so does the disposal plan

A slipped refresh changes more than a purchase order. It changes when devices retire, how many arrive at once, and what they are worth when they do. If you are running a three-year plan on a two-year disposal contract, now is the time to check the two still line up.

Memory prices may ease in 2028 or they may not. Your plan should work either way.

If you are replanning a refresh, talk to us about what your retiring estate is worth, in money and in impact.