The big picture: The RAM crisis has made the latest hardware so unaffordable that components from four years ago are storming sales charts. AMD and Nvidia have already responded to the demand by re-releasing chips from 2022, and now Intel is poised to follow suit.

Robert Hallock, Intel's vice president and general manager of enthusiast channel business, recently told Tom's Hardware that the company plans to continue offering Raptor Lake CPUs, first launched in 2022, for a while longer. Intel, like AMD, is responding to sustained demand for hardware that supports DDR4 RAM.

During a lengthy interview, Hallock noted a spike in demand for Alder Lake and Raptor Lake processors, which have recently become harder to find. While the exec did not mention specific products, he confirmed that the company aims to stabilize and maintain the supply of 10-nanometer chips that support Intel's LGA 1700 socket "for years to come."

The comments align with prior rumors that Intel might introduce another refresh for Raptor Lake – the lineup's third – during the first half of 2027. Tom's Hardware heard reports on the topic during Computex earlier this year, where at least two motherboard vendors also confirmed plans to increase production of aging LGA 1700-compatible boards to meet rising demand. Intel's rumored refresh, tentatively dubbed Raptor Lake Next, would exist alongside the DDR5-exclusive Nova Lake.

Also Read: DDR5 vs. DDR4 Gaming Performance Revisited

Surging demand for processors and mainboards that support the supposedly obsolete DDR4 memory is likely due to RAM shortages driven by AI data centers. The price of DDR5 RAM has skyrocketed over the past year, driving PC users to either purchase DDR4 memory at much lower (but still inflated) prices or hold onto the RAM they already have. Raptor Lake CPUs support DDR4 and DDR5 memory, giving buyers the opportunity to upgrade without replacing an entire PC.

AMD has already responded to the situation by re-releasing the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the CPU that introduced 3D V-Cache in 2022. The ongoing crisis has also turned the modest Ryzen 5 5500 into the reigning budget CPU king. While the company offers better processors at similar prices, such as the 7500F and 9800X3D, they all require DDR5 RAM.

The trend has even affected Nvidia GPUs. While tightening stocks of GDDR7 VRAM have increased the prices of the company's latest RTX 5000-series graphics cards and delayed the launch of the RTX 5000 Super cards, Nvidia has revived the 12GB RTX 3060 , also from 2022, as a temporary substitute.