DIY PC building is a no-fly zone in 2026. (Thanks, RAM.) Now what?

I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions, but 2026 is a special exception. You can thank stratospheric memory prices for that—and a little scare that happened right before Christmas. Micro Center briefly marked a handful of SSDs for sale at their suggested list price, alarming DIY PC builders with the thought of $600+ 2TB NVMe drives.

I lived a few potential lifetimes in the short period before Micro Center restored its real prices. That is, I imagined several possible paths for what I’d do if I couldn’t afford PC building.