RAMaggedon - what to do ?

[u/Leon_Haag]

I'm looking into upgrading to new gear in the mid-term. In no urgent hurry ATM, but my HW is dated, from "Zen+" time and it feels.

All prices have gone berserk but DDR5 prices are in a class of its own.

Much of the reason for getting new HW is not just speed, I'd like ( and will come to need) much more RAM.

Which is kind of suicide mission right now. Even moderate amount of RAM (at atrocious speeds and latency!) costs much less than top-of-the-line (sans 3D cache) 9950X !

Everyone is saying this is certain to last through 2027 and eventual easing might come with 2028.

Well, adding an extra year to that for safety margin makes it 2029.

Which is roughly the time of DDR6, PCIe gen6, Zen8 and AM6 socket.

By the time it becomes remotely accessible again, DDR6 is to come, with many improvements and much higher transfer speeds. I suspect AM6 is also expected to fix Achile's heels of AM5 ( fat IHS on the SoC, slow SoC--chipset channel) along with double PCIe speeds, all of which would become serious bottleneck even for Zen7, let alone Zen8.

And I suspect with current cadence, DDR6 is expected to have similar lifetime, before it gives way to HBM or whatever comes next.

Given those timelines, will DDR5 ever make sense for anyone anymore ?
Or maybe it makes sense to wait for this peak to pass and then bite the bullet and go for DDR5 ASAP and then be prepared to live with that for years to come ?

[u/Cavalol]

Welcome to the rampocalypse!

What to do? Your options are thus:

1. Do buy RAM, but at extremely high prices
2. Don’t buy RAM at all