DDR5 price spike keeps AM4 upgrades on the table as RAM kits triple in three months
ComputerBase’s latest price check shows mainstream RAM kits rising by an average 251.95% between mid-September and mid-December 2025. In the same tracking set, SSDs rose 41.59% on average and HDDs rose 33.72% .
That kind of jump changes the math for anyone moving to AMD’s AM5 , since AM5 builds require DDR5. A separate report says major motherboard makers have seen sales drop around 40-50% , which lines up with people delaying full platform upgrades.
Absolutely insane! The rise in RAM prices is almost beyond words. Last month, prices had nearly doubled, but now they’re more than triple on average: the selected RAM kits have increased in price by a whopping 252 percent compared to September.
— ComputerBase
According to CB’s chart, one of the most popular DDR4 kits has only risen 153% in comaprison:
Source: ComputerBase
Second life for AM4 socket?
The flip side is that AM4 upgrades can often skip the expensive parts of that bill. Keeping an existing board and DDR4, then dropping in a newer Ryzen chip after a BIOS update, is still a realistic path for many systems. XDA argues that this is giving AM4 a “second life” during the current DDR5 pricing cycle.
The broader context is a memory market under strain from AI and server demand, with consumer hardware absorbing the cost. Framework has already raised DDR5 upgrade pricing by up to 50% , and Dell has warned commercial buyers about 10-30% price hikes tied to RAM and NAND conditions.
If DDR5 stays elevated, AM4 is likely to keep seeing late-cycle demand from builders who just want a cheaper CPU refresh. For buyers, it also means the “best value” path may stay on DDR4 longer than expected, even with newer platforms on the market.
I still have one of my 5800X3D systems, and I can hardly see any reason for it to be upgraded.
Source: XDA Developers , ComputerBase
