The arrival of DDR5 memory in the general consumer market was a bit bumpy, not only because of the availability issues that occurred during its early post-launch stage, a direct consequence of the semiconductor shortage at the time, but also because of how high their prices were, so much so that some kits were more than triple the cost of their DDR4 capacity equivalent.
Fortunately, the situation has completely changed. Today we can find DDR5 memory kits at increasingly affordable prices, and we no longer move in heart attack figures that are out of reach for most users. However, it is important to keep in mind that the price of DDR5 memory is still higher than that of its DDR4 equivalents, always referring to equivalence by range and capacity.
According to DigiTimes, excess stocks and falling demand, coupled with a recovery in the semiconductor industry, will see the price of DDR5 memory kits continue to drop significantly over the next few quarters, and if nothing else happens these will reach parity with DDR4 kits sometime in the first half of 2023. An exact date has not been specified, but we are talking about the first or second quarter of next year, and seeing the current situation, I am inclined to think that it will be in the second quarter.
Intel was the first to adopt DDR5 memory, but I was aware of the availability and price problems that this was going to have, and that is why he made the Alder Lake-S compatible with DDR4 as well, a strategy that seemed very successful to me and that they will repeat again with Raptor Lake-S. In the case of AMD, we already know that the Ryzen 7000 will be limited to DDR5, so this price drop will be essential to facilitate and promote the adoption of this new generation of processors.
At the time of writing, a kit of two 8 GB modules (16 GB total) of 4,800 MHz DDR5 with CL38 latencies could be purchased for only €106.08, and the 5,200 MHz version with CL40 latencies went up to 118.37 euros. For comparison purposes, we see that a kit of two 8 GB modules (16 GB in total) of DDR4 at 3,200 MHz with CL16 latencies can be purchased from €64.99. The price difference is still considerable, but it is no longer so great as to represent a significant obstacle.
As for performance, I can confirm that even with a kit of DDR5 RAM at 4,800 MHz with CL40 latencies an interesting improvement is already noticeable in some games versus DDR4. It is not big enough to justify by itself in all cases the cost of changing the motherboard, processor and memory, especially if we have a current computer configured, for example, with a Ryzen 5000, but if we have an older team and we’re considering a full upgrade the jump to DDR5 makes sense, and it’s much more affordable than it was a few months ago.
