Will DDR5 Be Compatible With a DDR4 Motherboard?

DDR5 still has some mystery surrounding its release date, its price, and of course, how fast it will be, but the big question for PC builders is if it will be compatible with a DDR4 motherboard.

Here's what you need to know, so you can prep for the release!

Will DDR5 be compatible with a DDR4 Motherboard?

DDR5 RAM may look familiar to DDR4, but some key differences will be the required voltage and speed this RAM can achieve.

The RAM differences may seem insignificant enough that needing a new motherboard may seem overkill, but no motherboard can support the required speed and voltage that DDR5 will need at the time of writing.

This means that anyone using the current 10th generation or Ryzen 5000 series processors would need an upgrade before using any DDR5 RAM. So anyone looking to upgrade to DDR5 when it's released should be sure to have a good amount of money to upgrade not only the motherboard but also the CPU.

What else could you need for DDR5?

Ensuring that your motherboard can support DDR5 when released means having a processor that can also support DDR5 speeds.

At the time of writing, both Intel and AMD don't offer any processors that feature support for DDR5 RAM, and this is because the technology behind DDR5 has yet to be officially released. Although Intel's 12th generation processors called Alder Lake, have had rumors of being able to support DDR5, but there has been no confirmation from Intel regarding this rumor.

This information is based on leaks or benchmarks, meaning any information found may be subject to change before the official release of DDR5 RAM.

If you are looking to upgrade soon and don't feel like waiting for DDR5, then head on over to Gfinity's best Ram of 2021 for some top picks available right now.

READ MORE: Will DDR5 Be Expensive? Here's what we know so far