Is DDR5 Backwards Compatible? Everything You Need To Know


DDR5 is the next generation of RAM, which has yet to be released; one main question that many potential buyers have is if DDR5 will be backwards compatible?

Is DDR5 backwards compatible?

From all the released information regarding DDR5, It wouldn't be possible to make it backwards compatible due to the motherboards being unable to support the required voltage and the supplied speed.

Why is DDR5 not backwards compatible?

RAM compatibility is powered by the installed CPU and installed motherboard. The installed CPU and Installed Motherboard decide the supported RAM speeds and RAM capacity by the limiting number of RAM slots on the motherboard, and the CPU has a maximum supported RAM speed.

DDR5 Backwards Compatible
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Currently the Only Supported RAM generations are DDR3 ( for Server applications ) and DDR4 ( for general use)

Since neither Intel nor AMD has released a CPU that can support DDR5 at the time of writing, having a system that utilizes this upcoming RAM generation isn't possible.

This means that potential buyers will need to wait for Motherboards and CPUs to support RAM's newest generation, whether it's worth the wait is also up for debate.

If you don't want to wait for DDR5, and the other components you'll need to get DDR5 to work, then check out Gfinity's Best RAM 2021 article to find a good deal on some very fast DDR4 RAM.

READ MORE: DDR5 RAM - Everything we know so far!

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