Double Data Rate 4 memory—or DDR4 RAM if you’re short on time—has had a good run. It first popped into PCs over a decade ago, but at this point it’s hard to find a new laptop that hasn’t moved on to DDR5, and it’s only really relevant on the desktop side for budget mini PCs and AMD’s AM4 platform. DDR4 manufacturing is winding down, and that means it’s getting a whole lot more expensive.
There appears to be something of a rush on the existing stock of new DDR4 memory. TrendForce reports that retail prices for DDR4 RAM kits being tracked have gone up shockingly fast, with the price of some SKUs having gone up by almost 40 percent in the last week. That’s due to several compounding factors, including decreased production from memory manufacturers and the Trump administration’s import taxes (tariffs) feeding anxiety over pricing.
Those short-term price increases are, in fact, considerably higher than TrendForce predicted just a few weeks ago, where consumer-grade DDR4 modules for PCs was projected to rise 18 to 23 percent in the third quarter of the year. As Tom’s Hardware observes, this is an unprecedented situation: DDR4 might become more expensive than the much faster DDR5, based purely on scarcity as manufacturers like Micron and Samsung have wound down production.
A few quick searches show that DDR4 prices haven’t yet eclipsed DDR5 at the consumer retail level, though the former is definitely higher than it should be for a technology that’s on its way out. I’m more concerned about devices that use soldered memory modules in more affordable form factors, which can’t easily switch to new hardware that supports DDR5. The newest Raspberry Pi is still running on a design that’s six years old, with DDR4 memory that can’t be replaced. If that memory suddenly doubles in price, the Pi 4 will be forced to rise in price, too.
It might also be the final, arguably long-overdue death knell for AMD’s AM4 socket. AMD has been producing shiny new CPUs for the nearly 10-year-old platform as recently as this month, but it all depends on cheap and easily available DDR4 RAM to make financial sense. Without that component, we might see the end of a continually supported CPU socket that’s lasted through five chip generations and change.
