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

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You can play Arc Raiders on 10-year-old hardware, but would you want to?

An image showing multiple DRAM DIMMs arrayed in a fan, against a gradient blue background.
(Image credit: Future)

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.

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.

AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D processor
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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Jess Kinghorn
Jess Kinghorn
Hardware Writer

Jess has been writing about games for over ten years, spending the last seven working on print publications PLAY and Official PlayStation Magazine. When she’s not writing about all things hardware here, she’s getting cosy with a horror classic, ranting about a cult hit to a captive audience, or tinkering with some tabletop nonsense.

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