Looks like the AI boom has made DDR4 RAM no better value than DDR5 as storage and memory prices continue to rise

I'm sure we have plenty to actually thank AI for, but DDR4 pricing isn't one of those things. For a long time, DDR4 RAM was cheap enough to be worth consideration if you were looking to build a budget gaming PC. But judging from some recent charts shared by semiconductor analyst Ray Wang, DDR4 pricing is now so expensive it's hardly worth it compared to DDR5, even with DDR5 pricing having increased.

There's no source given for these charts, but it tracks with other analysis and even consumer tracking such as on pcpartpicker.com, and Wang is a reliable industry analyst. The AI boom (or bubble) has most certainly played a big part in this, because AI datacentres require tons of DRAM for stacks of high bandwidth memory (HBM).

And while DDR5 memory offers the latest and greatest on this front, much of this will be spoken for by big customers, leading many to fall back to DDR4, creating more demand and causing this price rise. This will have combined with declining DDR4 production as DRAM manufacturers transition more heavily towards DDR5, resulting in tons of demand and less supply. Thus, higher prices.

We're not just seeing this with RAM, but also with flash storage for SSDs. In fact, we've been hearing warnings about AI datacentres causing NAND and DRAM shortages and soaring prices for some time now. In fact, only last week Adata confirmed these fears, saying there's a shortage of memory and storage. We've even seen signs that HDDs are facing supply shortages due to AI datacentres, which will make companies that relied on this form of storage turn to SSDs instead and impact that supply, too.

The same will presumably go for system memory, too, if supplies run low: companies will have to take what's available, even if they would have opted for older and cheaper or newer and more expensive memory if the option was there. In other words, there isn't really an area or generation of memory or storage that isn't likely to be affected by this demand.

Manufacturers might also be resistant to increasing production too much for fear of the bubble bursting and them being left in the lurch. Which means memory and storage could be made to order and demand could remain consistently higher than supply.

Apart from the very steep and apparently "beautiful and satisfying" upward line representing DDR4 pricing in the graphs Wang has shared, the one of interest is the light blue one on the right. That one represents "DDR5 vs DDR4 premium", meaning how much extra you have to pay for the same capacity of DDR5 compared to DDR4. As you can see, this has nosedived, meaning you might as well grab DDR5 as it doesn't cost more.

Presumably the data for these charts are taken from the server market, meaning this might not track exactly onto consumer RAM kits you're likely to pick up for PC gaming. But what happens in the bulk server market does tend to trickle down, and we have certainly seen climbing DDR4 prices in the consumer market.

The one place that seems to be safe, for now, is the pre-built market. Some of the cheapest gaming PCs still feature DDR4 RAM. Though that's likely because these system builders already had the RAM purchased, and maybe even the PCs built, before these price hikes.

Plus there's the fact that the platform costs for DDR4 systems with older motherboards are still likely to be less than DDR5 platform costs, which might still make a DDR4 build worth it for a very cheap rig. But to be honest, at this point it's probably worth going for DDR5 if you can, even for a budget build.