Published in PC Hardware

Ryzen 7000 CPU release could sort out DDR5 memory price stalemate

by on26 May 2022


Company expects prices to fall

When AMD revealed its Ryzen 7000 CPUs at Computex 2022 there were questions from the floor about how it expects to sell when DDR5 costs about as much as a gold-plated Bugatti Veyron.

AMD says it doesn’t expect pricing to be an issue once launch rolls around.

The outfit’s Director of technical marketing Robert Hallock said the company is “all-in on DDR5” and the “supply looks really good.”

The memory vendors are bullish about being able to enable our supply forecast for the year, for next year. And so we don’t see any real challenges here with pricing.

Most experts say that DDR5 prices will drop throughout 2022 even if they are much more pricey that DDR4. The reason is that there are very few boards out there which support the new technology. When Intel released Alder Lake it decided to supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory which meant that price-conscious users ignored the expensive upgrade.

Ryzen 7000 is exclusive to DDR5, which could make for a much more expensive upgrade if prices stay high. AMD says Alder Lake is part of the problem with high prices, and that the launch of Ryzen 7000 could bring prices down.

Hallock said that people were not buying DDR5 because of Alder Lake. This created a chicken and egg demand problem for DDR5 in that it exists, but there’s another option that caused people to not choose it.

“We think we can help break that stalemate.”

Although AMD was careful not to say that DDR5 prices will drop, the company seems confident that Ryzen 7000 and the increased demand for DDR5 will balance the scales of supply and demand. That could be a big deal for upgrading, as upcoming X670 motherboards use an LGA socket that could increase the cost of buying a new motherboard.

“I’m not going to say that DDR5 is going to be cheaper than DDR4, but we certainly expect that the increased demand from having a bunch of new Ryzen customers exclusively on DDR5 will absolutely bring pricing down,” Hallock said.

 

Last modified on 26 May 2022
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