What to know before you upgrade or build a desktop PC in 2026

The current memory shortage is putting many people in a tough spot. They need a PC for things like work, finances, and staying connected, and they love having a PC for gaming and entertainment. But the current price of memory products is putting their dream build seemingly out of reach. But while there’s no magic fix for the memory market, there are strategies that will help you build a desktop PC (or upgrade the one you have!) without overspending on memory. Here’s what to know before you start purchasing components.

Build vs. upgrade: What’s the smarter play in 2026?

Some folks like to treat a PC makeover like a major home renovation. If they’re going to make changes, they prefer to make all the changes at once. When they choose to remodel their kitchen, for example, they’ll strip it down to the studs, rework the space, replace the appliances, and get a completely fresh experience when they’re done.

Other people prefer to take things piece by piece. One year, they might focus on the cabinets. The next year, they’ll assess the flooring. There’s less immediate impact with each upgrade, but these regular updates keep the room feeling fresh.

Something similar happens in the PC building space. When some builders reach a point where they need a new PC, they prefer to start fresh with all-new components in a new chassis. Others like to upgrade as they go, adding more storage and memory as necessary and swapping in key components like a new CPU or graphics card to meet their ever-growing performance needs.

Ordinarily, we wouldn’t pick favorites between these two approaches, but these aren’t ordinary times. Given the price of memory products, you’re probably better off opting for targeted upgrades rather than an all-new rig. This will help you access the performance and features you need while staying in control of costs.

That said, the upgrade approach only works if you have a functional PC as a starting point. If you’re looking to build your first PC, if it’s been a long time since you last built a PC, or if you need to replace some worn-out components, you might need to purchase memory or storage during the current shortage.

How to keep costs low while buying memory in 2026

Let’s say that you do need to buy memory to either build a new PC or upgrade your current PC to keep pace with the requirements of new apps and games. Here are some approaches that we’re seeing in the PC building community:

• Watch for combo deals. One way that etail sites work to keep the price of building a PC reasonable is to sell memory as part of a combo deal. The availability of these deals varies by day to day, and there’s no guarantee how long supply will keep up. But as of the summer of 2026, there are still plenty of combo deals over at Newegg that offer substantial savings if you’re buying memory as part of a larger bundle that might include a CPU and a motherboard.
• Buy and upgrade a prebuilt desktop PC. While the cost of individual memory kits has certainly increased in the last year, it’s still possible to find prebuilt desktop PCs at MSRP. Some are even on sale, though prices are of course a moving target. Grabbing a prebuilt desktop PC as your starting point ensures that you’re paying a reasonable price for the memory products. Then, you can upgrade key components like the graphics card to make sure that you’re getting the performance that you need. (Word to the wise: not all prebuilts are designed for easy upgrades. Look for prebuilt desktop PCs that use standard-sized components, like the ROG G700 series, for an easier upgrade experience.)
• Get the minimum today with a plan to upgrade later. Another approach is to grab one of the most affordable memory options available today with a plan to upgrade after the current shortage ends. You might end up with a non-ideal memory configuration, like an industry standard kit, a single DIMM, or a mismatched set of modules, but this approach will keep your PC ambitions up and running.

One common factor that we’ll point out between all these approaches: the memory support provided by your motherboard matters more than ever. Not all motherboards are equally equipped to handle the unexpected. A rich set of optimization tools and hardware-level enhancements helps give you options for tackling system instability or elevating your memory performance above the rock-bottom defaults.

How an ASUS motherboard can help you outlast the memory shortage

For a long time, PC builders could afford to be selective about purchasing memory. It was relatively easy to grab a memory kit listed on their motherboard’s QVL to ensure a plug-and-play experience. It wasn’t hard to optimize for performance by selecting dual-channel kits with EXPO or XMP profiles. The only real questions surrounded how much money it was worth spending on capacity, speed, or both.

Today, you might need to consider a memory kit that you would have passed over in previous years. Maybe you’re looking at 2x8GB DDR5 kits instead of the 2x16GB or 2x24GB options that you might have invested in just a year ago. Maybe you’re grabbing one stick instead of two. We’re seeing builders pick up industry standard DIMMs rather than XMP/EXPO kits. Others are scavenging older kits for use in new builds or even installing mismatched modules.

If you’re considering one of these options, we recommend investing in a motherboard that gives you some troubleshooting options. Too many cut-rate motherboards out there only do the minimum when it comes to memory support, leaving builders high and dry if their system isn’t quite stable with a non-ideal memory configuration.

ASUS motherboards do more than most to carry your system through the memory crisis. For years, we’ve been investing time and effort in helping users get the most out of their DDR5 memory kit, recognizing that the high-end bandwidth, hardware-level complexity, and thermal sensitivity of the new standard can make tuning DDR5 a challenge. Whether you’re looking to run a non-ideal memory configuration above and beyond the default JEDEC speeds or find the subtimings that’ll turn your unstable system into a rock-solid performer, you’ll find the help you need with a modern ASUS motherboard.

There’s more information on this subject than we can cover here, but you can follow the links below to learn more about memory-related motherboard technologies from ASUS.

• Boost your memory kit’s overclocking stability with DIMM Fit and DIMM Fit Pro, available on select ASUS motherboards
• How ASUS motherboards buy you the time to wait for your next memory upgrade
• XMP vs EXPO vs. AEMP: Unlock your RAM’s potential with memory profiles and more
• ASUS motherboards do more than most to help you get non-ideal memory configurations up to speed
• Here’s how ASUS Intel Z890 and B860 motherboards give you flexible options for selecting and optimizing RAM
• How the latest ASUS AM5 motherboards offer upgraded memory performance
• Guide: How to use DIMM Flex to maximize memory performance and stability
• Extract more gaming performance from your Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPU with ASUS XMP Tweaked
• Introducing NitroPath DRAM Technology: a revolutionary DRAM slot design for high-end gaming motherboards

Intel vs. AMD: Which platform is best in 2026?

With a plan in place for how to handle the memory question, you’re now able to make some decisions about the rest of your plan to upgrade or build a desktop PC. Many of those choices center on the question of which platform to pick: Intel vs. AMD. We’ll start with a quick comparison of the Intel options available today.

At the high end, you’ll find Intel Z890 motherboards and compatible CPUs from the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 lineup.

Opting for a Z-series motherboard gives you the option to overclock an unlocked Intel processor. Even if you don’t intend to overclock right away, it’s a nice option to have down the road to get even more lifespan out of your PC. Z890 boards also offer the best connectivity out of these three options, as their chipset arrangement allows for more and faster USB ports, and typically more M.2 slots, as well. The consensus among reviewers is that the latest Intel CPUs are quite compelling picks for professionals and content creators who need strong application performance, and they’re solid picks for gaming, too, especially recent entrants like the Intel Core Ultra Processor 270K Plus.

Your most affordable approach to an Intel build in 2026 is to go last-gen. With a chip like the Intel Core i3-14100F, a B760 motherboard, and a DDR4 memory kit, you’ll have sufficient performance to get an entry-level PC gaming rig up and running. Such a platform won’t give you the latest amenities, but it’s an affordable pathway to playing online games with your friends while giving you the versatile functionality of a desktop PC.

The middle road is to opt for B860 and a modern mainstream chip like the Intel Core Ultra 250K Plus. Selecting an Intel B-series motherboard takes CPU overclocking off the table, but that shouldn’t deter you from picking one of these boards. Many gamers, in particular, find that they do just fine with the out-of-the-box performance they get out of their Intel CPU. This route also ensures that you get the latest ASUS motherboard features for getting your DDR5 memory kit up to speed.

Flipping over to the AMD side of the CPU aisle, and once again starting at the top, AMD X870E and X870 motherboards await enthusiasts looking for a fully loaded platform.

Here, you’ll have access to the finest AMD motherboards available, with more than enough connectivity, overclocking support, and premium features to satisfy the most ambitious PC builders. Recent AMD processors equipped with AMD 3D V-Cache technology, like the eminently popular AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the chart-topping AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, have made waves among gamers in particular.

Budget-minded builders still look to the AMD B550 platform to help them assemble a PC for less. The AM4 socket on these motherboards doesn’t support the latest and greatest CPUs, but AMD has continued to support the platform with fresh (and refreshed) CPU launches, so you do have plenty of options. For folks building during the current memory shortage, the DDR4 memory support is a bonus. If there’s a weakness with going this route, it’s that your motherboard options are fairly limited at this point. If you’d like to have a bit more choice when it comes to your board’s features and aesthetics, you might prefer to bump up to a B850 motherboard and an AMD Ryzen 9000 Series CPU.

Speaking of which, it’s easy to recommend AMD B850 motherboards to a wide range of users. Such a motherboard gives you access the full range of currently available AM5 CPUs. B850 motherboards support both CPU and memory overclocking, giving you options for squeezing more performance out of your hardware, and you’ll get a modern menu of connectivity options.

How much GPU performance do you need in 2026?

For years, gamers have treated their graphics card as the crown jewel in their PCs, knowing that this component is more responsible than any other for boosting their experience in games, whether that’s in terms of raw FPS, advanced visual technologies, or game-boosting technologies.

In 2026, the rest of the PC world has caught up with gamers. The advanced parallelized compute performance of today’s graphics cards is so versatile that it can elevate basically anyone’s PC experience. Whether you’re editing video, orchestrating AI agents, building 3D animations, running advanced simulations, generating AI images, or even just creating a clean background for your video feed in conference calls, a graphics card plays a vital role.

Since so many different types of builders are using graphics cards for so many purposes, the modern graphics card market includes more options than ever, and the available options range all the way up to some truly premium models. The question, then, is how much GPU performance is enough.

To simplify your decision, we’ll cluster some recommendations around the question of VRAM. Graphics cards differ when it comes to things like memory capacity and bus speed, and those elements can act as a hard limitation for what you’re looking to accomplish with your PC.

Take the field of content creation, for instance. When you’re editing videos using high-resolution assets, you need a graphics card with enough VRAM to hold all that data. Otherwise, it gets offloaded to system memory, introducing latency into the mix, slowing down important things like scrubbing through a timeline. Professionals in this field need a content creation PC build with all the VRAM they can get, and they typically don’t bat an eye at the prospect of purchasing one of the most premium cards on the market. They know that they’ll get their money back from this purchase thanks to its ability to speed up their workflow.

Things are a bit more complicated in the world of gaming. Hardcore gamers seeking a premium 4K gaming experience in the latest, most lifelike games do tend to seek out a high-performance gaming PC upgrade through a card like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 or RTX 5090. But not everyone is looking for that kind of experience. Social gamers looking to join their friends in online games have a lot of fun with 1080p monitors and 8GB graphics cards. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB is easy to recommend for these gamers, as is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060. Prefer to bump up to 1440p gaming? Not a problem. Mainstream cards like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, or the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE are all excellent choices.

What kind of graphics card do you need for an agent PC? Once again, VRAM is a very important factor, as it determines the size of model that you can load into memory. This field is growing very quickly, but here’s where things stand as of the summer of 2026. Folks are finding that they’re no longer tied to expensive monthly subscriptions to access the power of AI. You can accomplish a lot, even with an 8GB graphics card. A 16GB graphics card will open up a lot more options, so if you rely on AI to process large amounts of visual data or maintain long-running conversations, a 16GB card is the smarter play. If you’re managing a larger fleet of AI agents, you’ll hit the limits of 16GB fairly quickly, so pursue a top-end card like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 for your pioneering ambitions in the field of AI.

Finally, let’s take a look at the needs of everyday users. We’re finding that today’s PC users are quite likely to fire up some fairly demanding PC use cases. Folks who don’t call themselves gamers are still fairly likely to play a game sometimes. People who wouldn’t call themselves AI enthusiasts are finding their competitive edge at work by taking advantage of AI. A graphics card makes sure that these users can explore these options, and they don’t even need an expensive card to get rolling. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 gives these folks a doorway into advanced PC use cases without requiring a large investment.

How much should PC builders invest in cooling hardware in 2026?

Back in the day, many PCs got all the airflow they needed with a single fan on the back of the machine. That doesn’t cut it for most PCs these days. The advanced performance of today’s CPUs and graphics cards requires a thoughtful plan for bringing fresh air into your PC and quickly exhausting waste heat.

Thankfully, that’s a lot easier than it used to be. This is an area where today’s PCs offer an incredibly easy experience. Instead of running two separate wires for every fan in your case, you can grab fans with a daisy-chain design that simplifies installation. Instead of designing a custom CPU cooling loop, you can install an all-in-one CPU liquid cooler to get quiet liquid cooling performance with none of the hassle. Freed from need to make space for optical drives and large HDD arrays, today’s chassis designs offer plenty of room for installing cooling hardware.

All told, we think that mainstream PC builders are well-served with an affordable AIO CPU liquid cooler like the TUF Gaming LC III 360 ARGB. Not only does it offer excellent CPU cooling right out of the box, but it also adds three fans to your PC’s airflow pathway. Whether you’re running these fans as intake or exhaust, they’ll play a vital role in moving air in your case. That’s a lot of value above and beyond the immediate concern of taming CPU temperatures.

Secure long-term peace of mind with a modern power supply

One final thought for preparing your next PC build or upgrade. Don’t forget about your power supply.

Any time that you’re eyeing up a CPU or graphics card upgrade, you should take a moment to ensure that your power supply delivers sufficient wattage. Our free online PSU calculator gives you a quick way to estimate the total power consumption of your PC build so that you can select a PSU with sufficient headroom for stable operation.

If it’s been a number of years since you last bought a power supply, you might have more to gain from a new PSU than a simple wattage upgrade. The latest advancements in the field, like GaN MOSFET tech, have made high-end efficiency ratings much more accessible than they used to be. A new PSU will likely be much more efficient at converting power from the wall into usable current for your PC components, so it’ll produce less waste heat and likely run more quietly in the process. Native support for 12V-2×6 cables means you won’t have to fuss with clunky adapters, and our latest options include the ROG Equalizer cable, as well, giving you peace of mind when supplying power to high-end graphics card.

Smart investments can keep you at the forefront of PC innovation

As frustrating as it can be to shop for PC components in the current memory shortage, there’s another side to this story. The primary reason that we’re seeing the shortage in the first place is because there’s so much innovation and change in the PC hardware space right now. Revolutionary new use cases for PC hardware have more people than ever taking advantage of high-performance PC parts.

Admittedly, that’s created some short-term pain for PC builders buying new parts. But it’s also a sign of just how much you might stand to gain from exploring the frontiers of what today’s PCs can do. Find a way to navigate the memory shortage, and you’ll be rewarded with a PC that’s capable of some truly incredible things, whether that’s in gaming, productivity, content creation, streaming, or all of the above.