Seeing the absolute state of memory pricing, Chinese DIY community opts for DDR3 motherboards instead

Earlier this week, I took a look at DDR5-7200 memory prices, and immediately regretted it. With such runaway memory prices, it's hardly surprising that sales of have seen a dip as a result—or that some folks are not even opting for last-gen hardware, but extremely old CPUs to make the most of last-last-gen memory.

To be clear, DDR4 memory pricing isn't much more sensible than DDR5; according to TrendForce's latest report, "the average spot price of mainstream chips (i.e., DDR4 1Gx8 3200 MT/s) has increased by 9.64% from US$25.407 last week (Jan.7) to US$27.857 this week (Jan.14)." A near 10% price increase in just one week is huge.

Understandably, many buyers are opting to hold off on upgrades, resulting in sluggish sales for both DDR5 and DDR4 memory. That's left DDR3 motherboard sales to take centre stage instead, apparently increasing between two and three times in the Chinese DIY market alone. Boards bundled up with 6th to 9th Generation Intel CPUs are apparently also getting a lot more attention (via Videocardz).

Supply has a huge impact on memory pricing. In the aforementioned case of DDR5 memory, there's less to go round in part thanks to the AI industry buying up a whole lot of wafers, but also due to suppliers and traders with stock not wanting to release what little inventory they have all at once. Furthermore, a number of fabs will shut down for the imminent Lunar New Year holidays.

As for DDR4, that was set to be discontinued over the coming year or so, but those plans appear on indefinite hold as interest for this last-gen memory suddenly spikes. DDR4 is better than no memory at all and, for gaming, it's not that much worse than DDR5.

So, if you can't get your hands on the latest and greatest, what does that leave you with? Ye olde DDR3, naturally. Though getting on in years, this hardware is not totally out for the count when it comes to gaming.

To return to those mobo bundles for a sec, Arc Raiders' minimum system requirements does include the Core i5 6600K CPU, one of those aforementioned 6th Generation Intel chips. You'd still need to source at least 12 GB of RAM in some form, though—and don't ask me about what number of frames you can expect on a system that only just meets those minimum specs. It probably wouldn't be too pretty, and you can forget about aim assist at those sorts of frame rates.

Still, if you're more one for shuffling decks or selecting dialogue options, (and you'd rather not resort to beating the memory crisis by making your own sticks of DDR5), then perhaps it wouldn't hurt to look back rather than ahead for your next hardware upgrade. Though maybe DDR4 really is better, if you can find it at not too steep a price.

Best PC build 2026

1. Best CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

2. Best motherboard: MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi

3. Best RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB DDR5-7200

4. Best SSD: WD_Black SN7100

5. Best graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070

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