Upgrade Your Computer Instead of Buying a New One

With the rising cost of inflation, more and more Dutch people are aware that they can easily upgrade components such as memory without buying a completely new installation. The most recent figures from Kingston Technology show that upgrade products such as memory modules have increased enormously in popularity.

Rising Sales

Niels Burnet, Business Development Manager Netherlands at memory manufacturer Kingston Technology EMEA, explains that “Currently, we are seeing a 29.99% increase in our DRAM sales. There are several reasons for this: memory prices have fallen, making memory more affordable. In addition, consumers are paying more attention to their spending due to inflation, and new memory remains cheaper than buying a completely new PC.”
New memory is not just a nice gadget; with many computers it is necessary after a number of years to extend the lifespan. Since the arrival of Windows 11, for example, many PCs have too little memory. While 4GB of RAM was enough for Windows 10, the newer version requires a minimum of 16GB. If memory hogs such as Microsoft Teams are installed on it, a new RAM memory is not an unnecessary luxury.

Sustainability

The growing mountain of waste with discarded IT hardware has an immense impact on the environment. Both consumers and companies are looking for ways to act in a more environmentally friendly way. Upgrading instead of replacing is better for the environment and the wallet, because memory and SSD upgrades give old systems a new lease of life. Furthermore, this growing popularity of upgrade products is in line with the bill that updates software and devices in the Netherlands and mandatory, which the House of Representatives voted for last year. According to the bill, consumers should be entitled to software and security updates for years after the purchase of smart devices such as smartphones, games and other software. Updating both software and memory contributes to a longer life and durability of electronic products.

Gamers as Frontrunners

Many game enthusiasts also build their own system themselves, and they are constantly looking around to find the best memory for even better gaming performance. There too, Burnet sees enormous growth in the Netherlands, of no less than 177%. New technologies such as DDR5 modules that have been on the market since last year make it even more interesting for consumers to opt for an even better set-up in order to properly maintain their system.
At the moment, overclockable DDR4 memory is the most popular as an upgrade, with a share of 85% in Q1 worldwide. Installing DDR4 does not require any other system upgrades, which explains the popularity of this type of memory.