The arrival of DDR5 memories to the general consumer market has been a bit bumpy, and not just because availability issues which occurred during its early post-market phase, a direct result 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 equivalent DDR4 capacity.

Fortunately, the situation has completely changed. Today we find DDR5 memory kits at increasingly affordable pricesand we are no longer moving in heart attack numbers 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 with reference to equivalence in terms of range and capacity.

According to DigiTimes, excess inventory and falling demand, along with a recovery in the semiconductor industry, will lead to another significant drop in the price of DDR5 memory kits over the next few quarters, and if nothing else happens these will reach parity with DDR4 kits sometime in the first half of 2023. The exact date has not been specified, but we are talking about the first or second quarter of next year, and given 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 cost issues it would have, and therefore made Alder Lake-S compatible with DDR4 as well, a strategy that I found very successful and which they will repeat 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 crucial in facilitating and supporting the adoption of this new generation of processors.

At the time of writing, a set of two 8GB modules (16GB total) 4800MHz DDR5 with CL38 latency 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 set of two 8GB modules (16GB total) DDR4 at 3200MHz with CL16 latency can be purchased from €64.99. The price difference is still significant, but it is no longer so great as to be a significant barrier.

In terms of performance, I can confirm that even with the DDR5 RAM kit at 4800 MHz with CL40 latencies an interesting improvement is already visible in some games compared to DDR4. It’s not big enough to justify the cost of replacing the motherboard, CPU and memory by itself in all cases, especially if we have a current PC configured with e.g. Ryzen 5000, but if we have an older team and considering a full upgrade, the jump to DDR5 makes sense and is much more affordable than a few months ago.