I went live to talk about the ugly reality of building a PC right now: RAM prices refusing to drop, GPUs still being a mess, and why 2026 pricing feels rough across the board. I pulled up Micro Center and Newegg on stream and showed exactly what I’m seeing—DDR5 kits that should be “normal” are still inflated, and in some cases they’re literally going up week to week. The example I used was a 64GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit that jumped from about $1,050 to around $1,110. That’s not a “sale season” problem—that’s the market. I also explained how I’d approach a build if you’re new: start with CPU/motherboard/RAM bundles (Micro Center combos are still one of the only ways to feel like you’re not getting completely cooked). I talked through why 6000–6400MT/s is the sweet spot, why CL30 is nice but not mandatory, and why CL36 can be totally fine if you’re trying to keep a build realistic. On the GPU side, I showed how pricing is still wild—5090s showing up at insane numbers and even “lower” cards like 5070 Ti and 5080 getting pushed way above where they should be. I also answered a bunch of AMA questions, including cooler choices for the 9800X3D and why the RX 9070 XT is a legit move if you don’t care about RTX fluff.