Early adopters of DDR5 RAM will need to pay up. Electronics retailer Newegg has begun listing DDR5 RAM products, and the prices for a 32GB kit can reach as high as $369.
For now, the retailer is only selling two DDR5 RAM kits at 16GB. The cheapest product comes from memory vendor Crucial and costs $115.99 for two 8GB sticks, a significant bump up from a 16GB DDR4 RAM kit that can often retail for $60 to $70.
The other 16GB DDR5 RAM kit comes from OLOy and retails for $159.99. Despite the high price, it’s currently sold out on Newegg. Neither kit comes with any RGB lighting.
The remaining seven DDR5 RAM kits available on Newegg offer 32GB of memory. But you’ll have to pay between $200 to over $300 to own them. The most expensive kit up for sale is one from Geil that retails for $369 and features a 5200MHz speed and some RGB lighting. In contrast, DDR4 RAM at the same capacity can cost from $100 to $200.
Outside of Newegg, Corsair is also selling its own DDR5 memory kits on its website. However, all the kits are only available at 32GB, and range from $289 to $359.
The sales come as Intel kicks off pre-orders for “Alder Lake” 12th generation Core processors, which are capable of using the new memory. MSI has warned that initial pricing for DDR5 will be about 50-60% higher than DDR4 RAM, although the costs should reach parity within two years.
If the DDR5 RAM pricing scares you, Intel’s newly launched Alder Lake CPUs can also work with DDR4 RAM; just make sure you buy a compatible Z690 motherboard that clearly says it supports the older memory standard.
Of course, the big question is whether DDR5 offers any noticeable advantages over DDR4. So stay tuned for our reviews of Alder Lake. In the meantime, if you must adopt DDR5, but want to save money, Crucial is also selling an 8GB DDR5 RAM stick for only $57.99.