DDR5 prices expected to plunge and reach DDR4 pricing levels by 2023

[headtr1p]

Something to look forward to: DDR5 prices are expected to plummet in the second half of 2022, and industry insiders believe this trend will continue in 2023, according to a report from Digitimes Asia. Memory vendors have started offloading entry-level DDR5 kits and consumer DDR5 prices have fallen below that of memory module manufacturers.

DDR5 is expected to hit its "sweet spot" in 2023, and AMD has predicted that DDR5 could hit DDR4 pricing levels by mid-2023. This isn't exactly surprising news, as we have seen a steady decline in prices over the past few months, falling as much as 20% just in July.

DDR5's initial pricing was somewhat outrageous, driven by limited availability and a heavy early adopter's tax, not to mention scalper pricing. Back in 2021, you were looking at close to $1,000 for a 16GB DDR5 kit. But with increased availability and lower pricing, we could see widespread adoption in the first half of 2023 -- by then the technology should have matured even further, offering lower latency.

Also read: We Bought the Cheapest DDR5 RAM Modules We Could Find, Are They Any Good?

You can now grab a 32GB DDR5 kit for under $200. We've seen a similar scenario with previous memory standards: high initial pricing with low demand, followed by a steady decline in prices and increased availability.

With Ryzen 7000 only weeks away, this is timely news. Early adopters of the AM5 platform won't have to pay an arm and a leg for DDR5 memory. Ryzen 7000 will only support DDR5, which could serve as a catalyst for DDR5 adoption. Even though Intel's Alder Lake CPUs already support DDR5, most users stuck with DDR4 due to steep pricing. But with DDR5 now being a better value proposition, Alder Lake users will be tempted to move on.

Intel's upcoming 13th-gen Raptor Lake chips will retain DDR4 support, but by the time these CPUs land on store shelves, DDR5 should be even more affordable, and we can expect Raptor Lake users to embrace the new technology, too.

While the low latency kits are still fairly expensive, some DDR5 kits are already offering compelling value, and it won't be long before DDR5 becomes the de facto standard. If you can hold off a little longer, you should be able to find a sweet deal on Black Friday.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95958-ddr5-prices-expected-plunge-reach-ddr4-pricing-levels.html

 

[yRaz]

You can now grab a 32GB DDR5 kit for under $200. We've seen a similar scenario with previous memory standards: high initial pricing with low demand, followed by a steady decline in prices and increased availability.

Why was anyone surprised by this? I've literally watched this happen with every memory type, graphics and desktop, since PC66. I also think AMD's timeframe with DDR5 prices and their new produce releases was pretty well lined up.

Further, DDR4 sales had been slowing since everyone already had what was the best DDR4 available and unwilling the upgrade, manufacturers had a pretty deep incentive to ramp up DDR5 production.

This is how I've watched basically every go. The previous generation is as good as it will ever be with new generation being far too expensive for what it gives. However, the day comes where after a decent amount of development, the new midrange kits out perform the old high end kits and everyone can't wait to upgrade. The only exception I remember seeing to this was going from PC133 to DDR1 where everyone was pretty excited to jump on. It was significantly more expensive but DDR-400 gave so much in the way of performance and features that its cost was basically negligible.

So, in short, I have never and do not think I ever will understand where the sentiment of "new generations are too and expensive and will never be viable" comes from. AMD's timing was basically perfect for this and since Intel has DDR4 and 5 compatibility on their current generation it gave manufactures a buffer to not only increase production but make performance improvements before a full blown release.

We will likely see a mild increase of price of DDR5 whenever Ryzen 7000 is released but it will likely be a small increase of around 10%. I'm also sure memory manufactures will have plenty of inventory. DDR4 sales have been slowing meaning they have reduce production of DDR4. This isn't like the chip shortage when all of TSMC's nodes were going full blast at all times and they didn't have any unsold production.

 

[toooooot]

Good to know. I am concerned for gpus though. If virtual coins go up in price again the new video cards will be gone again just like it happend sometime ago.

 

[Irata]

But with DDR5 now being a better value proposition, Alder Lake users will be tempted to move on.

Why ? If they already have a DDR4 600 series mainboard, getting a new board and memory makes zero sense.

 

[Uncle Al]

No great surprise here .... tech prices always drop after the next generation arrives ....

 

[terzaerian]

Good to know. I am concerned for gpus though. If virtual coins go up in price again the new video cards will be gone again just like it happend sometime ago.

Ethereum finally has a block set for the merge to occur and it should be occurring within about two days, at long last. We'll see if any new proof-of-work projects gain enough traction to fill that void but at this point in time I have a hard time seeing it.

Hopefully this will lead to a paradigm shift in mining where multi-card GPU rigs fall out of favor to either investing in an ASIC or just casually mining on an existing PC.

 

[yRaz]

Ethereum finally has a block set for the merge to occur and it should be occurring within about two days, at long last. We'll see if any new proof-of-work projects gain enough traction to fill that void but at this point in time I have a hard time seeing it.

Hopefully this will lead to a paradigm shift in mining where multi-card GPU rigs fall out of favor to either investing in an ASIC or just casually mining on an existing PC.

What they actually mean with proof of stake is that it's switching to proof of DDR5, You mine by having more DDR5 than everyone else.

 

[Watzupken]

I agree that this is the usual trend. DDR5 was available in the retail space almost a year ago and under normal circumstances, should see prices drop by now. It seems that AMD's AM5 is timely to jump onto the DDR5 bandwagon, and without the fall back of DDR4 in the lineup. On the other hand, Intel's Alder Lake while being a powerful CPU, would have failed miserably in terms of sales, had they not released boards that also supports DDR4.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

You mean AMD knew what they were doing all along. By the time Zen 4 is shipping in volume it will be late 2022 early 2023 anyway. By the time v-cache models ship in late Q1 2023 pricing of DDR5 won't be an issue at all. Now all AMD needs to do is offer 4 core 8 thread 7400X < $199 and they'll have a competitive stack top to bottom.

 

[Revolution 11]

What do they consider to be the "price" of DDR4 that DDR5 will be matching in 2023? Is it an average or some arbitrary price? You can get DDR4 32GB sticks for $71 right now on Amazon. That is 64 GB of DDR4 for less than $150. Is DDR5 dropping to this current price level?

I doubt it.

 

[wiyosaya]

Why was anyone surprised by this?

I have never and do not think I ever will understand where the sentiment of "new generations are too and expensive and will never be viable" comes from.

I agree. All tech, regardless of sector, is this way. The same was said about Plasma TVs and OLED TVs, to name a couple from the home entertainment genre. If you want to stick with computer tech, hard drives fit this, too.

IMO, anyone who says any new tech will never be viable or affordable is rather ignorant of historical price trends for "New Tech" in any tech sector.

 

[wiyosaya]

Why ? If they already have a DDR4 600 series mainboard, getting a new board and memory makes zero sense.

Exactly. Intel just wants to sell new motherboards and processors. I built one Intel PC with Sandy Bridge and upgraded the proc to Ivy Bridge, but I will not build with Intel next time, or actually, for my next five builds that will replace existing PCs - one of those being the Intel build. IMO, Intel's "it supports DDR4 _AND_ DDR5" just does not cut it for me.