Production of DDR4 memory and motherboards is restarting amid unprecedented memory shortages — PC industry preparing for a world without DDR5
The PC industry is bracing for a slip back to DDR4 memory among enthusiasts. Tom’s Hardware has learned at Computex 2026 that both motherboard brands and many module houses — the companies that produce the DIMMs you can buy — are shifting their strategy toward a resurgence in DDR4 platforms as unprecedented memory shortages and price increases continue to raise the entry point into building a PC. Those pain points are particularly acute with DDR5 memory. We confirmed with over half a dozen sources: motherboard manufacturers and module houses are seeing an increase in demand for DDR4 platforms and shifting production accordingly. This could create challenges, however, as high-performance DDR4 dies, such as the famous Samsung B-dies, are no longer in production. As such, most of the revamped DDR4 kits will top out at a rather pedestrian DDR4-3600. On the motherboard side of things, at least two vendors confirmed to Tom’s Hardware that they are ramping production of DDR4-supporting motherboards for the second half of the year and into 2027, which makes sense, given that motherboard sales have seen a “collapse” this year, with sales declining by as much as 37% with some vendors. Others have confirmed that they plan to either refresh or re-release DDR4-supporting options later in the year. Many of these products had been in end-of-life (EOL) status, so production lines had long ago shifted to other products. Now new manufacturing capacity will be dedicated to restoring those product families. This comes as demand for DDR4 platforms has increased. One motherboard brand cited a double-digit increase in sales over the last quarter, which Tom’s Hardware was unable to corroborate, while others simply said the demand has increased significantly. AMD and Intel have geared up for a shift back to DDR4, as well. AMD launched the Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition at Computex, which the company says it will continue to sell as long as it makes sense; in other words, it’s not a limited edition run. AMD has also shifted the hybrid bonding process of the 5800X3D, setting it up for a more long-term production run. It joins AMD’s Zen 3 XT chips, which it released in 2024 and continues to sell. Intel continues to sell its Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs, as well, and the company told Tom’s Hardware it “will continue to make sure that there are products which can take care of older memory technologies.” One motherboard vendor said it was specifically ramping production of LGA 1700 motherboards with DDR4 support, as options have slowly dried up in the market. Although there is already DDR4 in the market, it’s also easier to produce, which would help elevate some of the bottlenecks in the current memory supply chain. One of the key shortages right now is advanced packaging, which DDR5 requires with an integrated PMIC. DDR4, by comparison, is much simpler to package and sell, which should help keep prices from climbing into the DDR5 range. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. The major chokepoint for DDR4 is wafer allocation, which is a bottleneck that one memory manufacturer (not a module house) pointed to as a potential issue with a shift back to DDR4 platforms. Wafer allocation is a broader bottleneck within the PC industry, however, with Intel even shifting allocation toward the data center as an unprecedented demand for data center CPUs takes hold. Unfortunately, there appears to be no end in sight. If there’s one thing that nearly all of our sources agreed on, it is that DRAM and NAND shortages will continue throughout all of 2027. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. - people acting like this is some horrible thing....DDR4 is fine.Reply very few things in the world actually "need" fastest memory you can get. majority of it is fine running on DDR4 as its still fast. - Reply That is exactly why I am still using a flip phone.hotaru251 said:people acting like this is some horrible thing....DDR4 is fine. very few things in the world actually "need" fastest memory you can get. majority of it is fine running on DDR4 as its still fast. - "Although there is already DDR4 in the market, it’s also easier to produce, which would help elevate some of the bottlenecks in the current memory supply chain."Reply Why would it do that, because they are diverting DDR5 production? - At this stage, I would be willing to use DDR3, maybe raise my 16 to 64 GB (my 4790 would love them and the prices are like in the good old days!Reply Except, most available sticks on Amazon are from dubious / never heard of companies and the few known names (GSkill, Patriot) sell them only in 8 GB sticks....and if you find 2x16 or 2x32 they'd cost as much as DDR4 or 5!!) We're stuck in RAM hell till maybe 2040! - Funnily enough, I found myself looking at this article from Tom's (November 2025) just a day or two ago. Also found myself curious about DDR4 vs DDR3, though, I suspect the jump between those two was significantly largerReply - it's about time- I had picked up 2 Samsung 870 evo 2tb ssd back in Jan for $199. ea (Cdn)Reply I was shocked the other day when, curious after installing one of those into my pc the price is now listed at $1410 ! - Sounds very good to me. I have an older AMD 3600x and I'm still happy with it. Sure, I wish that it was faster but for the amount of money they want these days for every part it isn't worth changing. All I wanted was to add another 16GB of memory so I could run a local LLM.Reply Since I couldn't get the memory cheap enough I gave up on the idea and I'll simply run it at work on their systems. :( - Reply It's great news. I have some machines with only 16-32 GB that I'd love to upgrade to 64 GB, and increased/restarted production is the way to eventually make that a cheap upgrade.hotaru251 said:people acting like this is some horrible thing....DDR4 is fine. very few things in the world actually "need" fastest memory you can get. majority of it is fine running on DDR4 as its still fast. And there's nothing stopping me from buying even more DDR4 based machines. I'm sure plenty of people will be buying and selling used Comet/Rocket/Alder/Raptor/Zen systems a decade from now. There are no 32 GB DDR3 sticks. 16 GB is the maximum. Please don't get scammed!PEnns said:Except, most available sticks on Amazon are from dubious / never heard of companies and the few known names (GSkill, Patriot) sell them only in 8 GB sticks....and if you find 2x16 or 2x32 they'd cost as much as DDR4 or 5!!) Moreover, older Intel DDR3 CPUs may have trouble supporting the larger ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAMThe DDR3 standard permits DRAM chip capacities of up to 8 gigabits (Gbit) (so 1 gigabyte by DRAM chip), and up to four ranks of 64 Gbit each for a total maximum of 16 gigabytes (GB) per DDR3 DIMM. Because of a hardware limitation not fixed until Ivy Bridge-E in 2013, most older Intel CPUs only support up to 4-Gbit chips for 8 GB DIMMs (Intel's Core 2 DDR3 chipsets only support up to 2 Gbit). All AMD CPUs correctly support the full specification for 16 GB DDR3 DIMMs. Intel also supports 16 GB DIMMs, from Broadwell (also named as "AMD Only" memory, because of using 11-bit addressing). Maybe it's not a scam but actually RDIMMs instead of UDIMMs that you are noticing. Not sure, but be careful. - Reply I was thinking about that issue of production diversion also.endocine said:Why would it do that, because they are diverting DDR5 production? Mass producing more and more and more DDR5 of course would bring costs down, as we saw with Micron's exit and that making them go up.(the reverse situation) But it is said that DDR4 is more simple to produce. I've not currently well-read about those details but it stands to reason that more simple to produce = cheaper costs. - Glad I’ve got my ryzen 5 7500x3d and 32gb of ddr5 on a b850 board. This should hold me for a while. Maybe when they release zen 7 if it’s compatible to my board then something like an 11800x3d should be a nice upgrade and give me a few more years.Reply