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DDR5 RAM Release Date & Price: Everything we currently know about DDR5 RAM

When will DDR5 be Released? How will it compare to DDR4? Is it worth buying straight away? All answered and more...

Updated: Jul 18, 2022 1:44 pm
DDR5 RAM Release Date & Price: Everything we currently know about DDR5 RAM

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It is finally here, DDR5 RAM was released on the 4th of November 2021 alongside Intel 12th gen CPUs and Z690 motherboards.

It’s been around 4 years since the first signs of DDR5 RAM started to emerge, and since then, we’ve seen a rise and fall in DDR5 popularity.

DDR5 RAM is set to supersede DDR4 in almost every area – faster speeds, greater bandwidth, better power efficiency – you name it, DDR5 does it better, on paper anyway.

That being said, the last 6 months have played host to some breakthrough moments in the DDR5 movement – with the last couple of weeks showcasing a tonne of reveals from the market’s leading memory manufacturers.

Whilst there is no official release date on DDR5 memory modules just yet, leading manufacturers are beginning to unveil fully functional DDR5 memory kits to the public. Amongst the speculation, best guesses suggest that the new DDR5 platform will launch around the same time as Intel’s Z690 motherboards.

However, like all DDR5 news over the last few years, we’ll be taking this with a pinch of salt. Furthermore, with the current shortage in, well, pretty much everything PC-related, there’s a strong chance the arrival of DDR5 will sadly be delayed.

All being said, we’ll try to answer some of the more pressing questions surrounding next-gen memory in this article: when will DDR5 be released? Is it worth purchasing DDR5 RAM? How will DDR5 compare with DDR4 RAM? These are just some of the topics we’ll be covering below.

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DDR5 performance

DDR5 is fast, but only in some workloads. Synthetic and workstation tasks see the most uplift when switching from DDR4 to DDR5, however, you are met with diminishing returns as you climb in speed.

For example, jobs involving compression see a speed increase of 46% when opting for DDR5 4800 over DDR4 4000. But we only see a 14% improvement when performing the same compression with a kit of DDR5 6400 over a kit of DDR4 4800.

There’s not as much of an increase to be had whilst gaming, however, as the only available CPU supporting DDR5 right now belongs to Intel. As we know, it’s Ryzen CPUs that benefit the most from faster RAM speeds. As Ryzen CPU core communication speed is directly correlated with RAM speed. That’s not to say that Intel does not benefit from faster RAM, it just does so less than Ryxen would.

For better results, we need to see how Ryzen performs on the DDR5 platform. And for that, we need to wait for AM5.

If you’d like to learn more about this, and more differences between AMD and Intel. Check out our AMD Vs Intel piece.

DDR4 Vs DDR5

Developers are promising some impressive figures for DDR5, stating that the next-gen RAM modules will have twice the performance of today’s DDR4-3200 RAM. All sounds mighty impressive, but what exactly does twice the performance actually mean?

Well, in a nutshell, the DDR5 design promises to hit shelves with double the density and double the speed of 1st gen DDR4-3200 modules. In addition to this, where DDR4 maxes out at 32GB per stick, DDR5 will be able to accommodate a much greater volume – with 128GB not being out of the question.

Furthermore, many memory manufacturers are boasting speeds of up to 8,400MHz – with native frequencies sitting at an impressive 4,800MHz. This is a huge uplift when compared to DDR4, even when paired against the most overclocked modules.

Many DDR5 memory kits will also come with onboard overclocking support. The Geil Polaris series, for example, is said to offer overclocking support of up to DDR5-7200MHz – a 50% increase over the average DDR5-4800 kit.

While we aren’t certain this will be advantageous to AMD processors, Ryzen is renowned for delivering better performance when paired with high-speed RAM. If speculations are to be believed, this will naturally be a perfect fit for AMD APUs & CPUs as they tend to thrive on higher-speed memory.

The table below outlines some of the finer details that we can expect from the latest module.

As you can clearly see, DDR5 offers much higher data rates, lower overall power consumption, higher density per stick, and a BL16 burst length which, when all paired together, shows the true potential this hardware brings to the table.

The data rate, which for us is one of the better improvements we’ve seen over DDR4, actually allows for an increase of 1.36X effective bandwidth when comparing DDR4 vs DDR5 at 3200Mhz.

If you do the same math against a higher speed DDR5 (4800Mhz) then the results produce almost double what DDR4 has to offer. See the chart below:

Data Rate

And let’s not forget, this isn’t factoring in overclocking profiles and higher-speed DDR5 memory (up to 8,400MHz).

There are other benefits to DDR5 which include two independent 40-bit channels per mode, an improved command bus efficiency, increase bank group, and refresh schemes as well.

ddr5 advantages

DDR5 release date

Back in March of 2017, JEDEC announced that DDR5 was being worked on and should be released in 2018. Jumping forward to November 2018, SK Hynix finally announced the first-ever DDR5 compliant RAM module, stating that the kits would be available for consumer purchase by end of 2020.

In a strange turn of events, SK Hynix actually slashed the release date to 2019, sparking excitement and speculation around the new DDR5 RAM modules. Ultimately, however, that wasn’t to be.

Fast forward to the present day and DDR5 is still as elusive as it ever was. Well, not as elusive, there have been some major movements in the launch of DDR5 that came to fruition at the end of 2020.

SK Hynix finally revealed the world’s first DDR5 memory modules – coming to theoretical shelves with 5,6000Mbps of raw bandwidth and operating at a lower voltage of 1.1V. While the new kits were set to hit shelves by Q3 of 2021, that wasn’t to be. As I write this now, Z690 motherboards and Intel’s 12th Gen CPUs are looking set to launch by the end of 2021 – with DDR5 following suit.

Because new CPUs now have more cores than ever, improvements in the RAM industry have had to be made to keep up with the GB/s per-core bandwidth demands. Thanks to the increased data rates, DDR5 clearly takes a huge step forward in the right direction, seen in the chart below.

DDR5

DDR5 price & availability

Here we will explain the pricing of DDR5 and its availability on the market.

DDR5 Expected Pricing

There is always speculation surrounding new hardware prices and DDR5 is no different. We currently don’t have a price for how much the superfast memory will cost but what we do know, based on historical evidence, is it’s going to be more than DDR4. Who knew.

While this is no real surprise, it’s definitely still worth mentioning – especially when you consider how much some of the higher-end DDR4 RAM kits currently retail for.

The latest leaks for Geil Polaris DDR5 say that the next-gen entry-level memory kits could retail for as high as $329. Compare that with Premium DDR4 RAM that can retail for as high as $200 and it’s easy to understand DDR5’s pricing – especially when it promises to be twice as good.

Other major manufacturers have yet to show their hand on pricing, but we can only speculate that most will be around the $329 marker set by Geil.

Availability is a similar story, unfortunately. We will likely see the arrival of DDR5 in the mobile community first via Samsung and Micron in the LPDDR5 variety. It’ll be a good benchmark for what we can expect for desktop PC variations though.

A solid indicator of when DDR5 is going to become fully mainstream has been displayed in a chart designed by SK Hynix. They’ve tried to estimate how the sales market will be split in the coming years. Below is the chart.

DDR5 Tech Transitions

SK Hynix initially estimated that 25% of all memory market sales will be represented by DDR5 in 2020 – with over 40% expected by 2021. Despite this not being the case, it still gives us a good indication of how much the RAM is going to cost as they believe DDR4 is still going to have a major part to play in the memory game.

DDR5 Availability – Where to buy – pre order

DDR5 has been up and down in the market as of the last year or so, but now it seems it is starting to become more available. As of 11th July, most DDR5 RAM kits are available, in stock, and around MSRP. this is in spite of the recent challenges Covid-19 brought to the manufacturing of many PC products.

Is DDR5 Worth Buying?

Well, that’s the big question. It all comes down to how much these modules cost and whether or not the current price is a fair reflection of the product’s value.

As most will already know, for years, upgrading your RAM was probably the least effective way of achieving performance gains in your system. However, since the release of AMD’s new CPU & APU hierarchy, that’s no longer the case.

AMD CPUs literally thrive when paired with speedier RAM – meaning the arrival of DDR5 8,400Mhz will be a welcome one, -especially now Ryzen’s 5000-series CPU lineup starts to become more readily available.

This being said, we aren’t fully aware of what hardware is going to be compatible with the new modules either, so we’ll have to play the waiting game for now.

DDR5 FAQs

Will DDR5 Improve Gaming?

DDR5 will improve your gaming to an extent. However, you may be surprised by the difference. While you may assume that DDR5 will make a hugely significant difference, in the vast majority of cases, this improvement is only minimal.

What is great about DDR5 is that it will raise the overall potential of your PC. The overall performance will improve, but you will need to weigh up whether the slight increase in performance is worth the extra costs of gaming.

In addition to this, you will need to ensure that the other components within your build are compatible. Given this, unless you are looking to upgrade your entire PC, it is often not worth upgrading from DDR4 to DDR5. If you have an older DDR, you will likely notice a bigger improvement.

Can a DDR4 Motherboard Support DDR5 RAM?

No, if you currently have a DDR4 motherboard, it will not be able to support DDR5 RAM. As a result, if you are looking to upgrade your RAM, you will need to upgrade your motherboard too.

Upgrading your motherboard will have a potential knock on effect on the other components within the PC build, such as the GPU and CPU too. When you take this into consideration, there is little use in upgrading from DDR4 to DDR5 currently as the difference is not extreme.

However, if you are already upgrading your PC build, then we would recommend purchasing DDR5 RAM and a compatible motherboard and components. This is because they will be more future proof.

It is worth keeping in mind that a motherboard may have the technology to enable this in the future. But typically, motherboards are not compatible with newer technology, though they can often be backward compatible.

How Much Faster is DDR5 Than DDR4?

It goes without saying that DDR5 is going to be better than DDR4. It is the latest DDR released, and is still very new, with it only being released in October 2020. When compared to DDR4, it is actually twice as fast.

When you take into consideration how revolutionary DDR4 was when it was released, this sort of speed is impressive. However, given that DDR5 is so new, there are a limited amount of components and motherboards that are compatible with it currently.

As a result of this, you will be limited to an extent with the amount of components and motherboards that are compatible. However, as the months progress and more components are created, there will be more available that are compatible.

While the speed of DDR5 is currently 4.8 Gbps, this is going to be eventually increased to 6.4 Gbps, which is particularly faster than DDR4.

Final Word

There you have it, everything we currently know about DDR5 memory. It’s going to be fascinating to see what sort of real-world improvements actually come from implementing this new rapid memory into your rig. Is it going to make a huge difference or not much at all?

Well, rest assured, as soon as desktop PC DDR5 hits shelves, our experience WePC benchmarking team will be doing a full breakdown of how effective this new hardware really is.

We will be updating this page on a regular basis so that you guys are right up-to-date with the latest news and announcement.

Any questions regarding DDR5, feel free to leave us a message below and we’ll answer it the best we can!


Jack is a Tech and News Writer who has a vast and proficient knowledge of CPUs, Motherboards, and Computer technology.

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