- DDR4 RAM is becoming more expensive
- AI is partly promoting that price increase, but it is also a natural process
- Price increases are likely to continue
The PC component market has made a turn, since the latest DDR4 memory is now a good business more expensive than the avant -garde DDR5 RAM, or at least that is widely true, and can blame AI for this, in a round way.
Tom hardware collected a digitime report with payment walls that break down prices in the Ram Sticks PC supply chain. Just keep in mind that this is an image for the entire RAM market (business and consumer), and I will again be important again.
Digitimes observes that the memory price (for RAM manufacturers) increased in the second quarter of 2025 and has now stabilized at these high levels, but DDR4 is still moving forward. As of August, we are told that the price of 16 GB of DDR4 memory increased by 7% to $ 9.17 per chip, while DDR5 was in the other way, falling 3% to $ 5.99 for each chip.
In summary, DDR4 kits now have 50% more expensive than DDR5 (for the general memory market). So why is this happening? As mentioned from the beginning, the problem is that AI is in fashion, so the great memory manufacturers, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, are changing to produce more DDR5 and HBM (high -level memory memory) for AI accelerators, since they are great gain yarn.
The need for this production is to eat the capacity of the assembly lines for DDR4, so there is less on the path of the modules that occur, which negatively affects the supply and, therefore, exerts ascending pressure on prices.
Do not expect this to change in the fourth quarter, since, according to the Digitime report, it is likely that the DDR4 price will be a little higher even more in the last quarter of this year.
ANALYSIS: Out with the old, inevitably …
It is worth noting that Old Tech has production naturally reducing over time, of course, as it becomes increasingly irrelevant, and this is the case with DDR4 now, as it was with the oldest RAM standards before. As everyone obtains new PC with DDR5 support, and the price of that contemporary memory standard is reduced, and PC builders stop using DDR4, heads to the door. It is just that in this case, the market seems to accelerate this item.
However, at this time, although prices in some DDR4 kits have clearly increased, it is not the case that all price labels pass through the roof for DDR4. In fact, looking at the 32 GB RAM kits (a pair of 16 GB modules, which is the best way to configure that memory load), there is not much for the price of DDR5 and DDR4 kits in the low range, and the latter still has the slightly cheaper options. (Based on the current state of the game in Newgg in the United States, but it is likely that there is a variation, of course, with different retailers and other regions).
So this does not mean all DDR4 RAM is now much more expensive, but that this is widely true throughout the market (including the business world, not only retail sites, as I mentioned above). There are still exceptions to this rule, and you can see that clearly looks online prices (great typical consumer -oriented retailers).
Even so, with the trends that are directed as they are, and DDR4 inevitably when leaving, if you want an affordable RAM update for an existing PC, it is probably a good idea to buy now instead of waiting, and take one of those smaller price kits that are still going on. We have also chosen the best DDR5 RAM for those looking for that, including economic options as the current generation standard becomes cheaper and cheaper.
