Will DDR5 Be Expensive? Price, Predictions, and More

Then next generation of RAM is on its way, and while we're all very excited about the potential of DDR5, we're dying to know if it will be expensive?

Building a PC in 2021 is already a costly venture, especially given the prices of NVIDIAs latest GPUs, subject to inflation due to scalpers and cryptocurrency miners.

If you're postponing your upgrade to wait for DDR5's release, let's take a look at what we know so far, and if you should start saving!

Will DDR5 be expensive?

Since we don't have any official announcements yet, we wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how expensive DDR5 will be, however, we can make some predictions based on what we've seen before.

DDR4, on release, saw a jump in price from the previous generation, and we'd say this is likely to be the case with DDR5. Of course, it goes without saying that most new tech debuts at a higher price, so we don't expect the starting price to stay the same for years to come.

16GB of high-quality DDR4 RAM can cost up to around £150, if you need that comparison.

But why could we see a higher price? What exactly makes DDR5 so different?

What could make DDR5 RAM expensive?

The new generation of RAM requires a change to the RAM slot design. This change makes the older motherboard unable to offer support for the newer generation.

In addition, the processors themselves also need support for the newer generation.

Since DDR5 requires changing the motherboard and the CPU to components that support the newest generation, upgrading to DDR5 may well come at a high cost.

Further, since DDR5 will be a shiny new product to play with, it will naturally be more expensive at launch - just as Cyberpunk 2077 cost $60/£50 at launch, yet costs around $30/£20 now.

We'll keep you posted on everything we hear about DDR5 RAM as it comes in, but if you're looking for something you can use right now, then check out Gfinity's Best RAM of 2021, for their top picks available right now.

READ MORE: How fast will DDR5 be? Here's what we know...