As RAM crisis intensifies, DDR3 motherboards are making an improbable comeback

Here's one way to avoid paying an absolute fortune for RAM - forget DDR5 or even DDR4 memory, switch back to DDR3, as some folks are doing in China.

As RAM crisis intensifies, DDR3 motherboards are making an improbable comeback
Comment IconFacebook IconX IconReddit Icon
Tech Reporter
Published
1 minute & 30 seconds read time
TL;DR: DDR3 motherboards are becoming a lot more popular in China suddenly, as consumers seek to avoid the ridiculous price tags now pinned to more modern system RAM. Sales of those mobos have roughly tripled, and bundles of DDR3 boards plus old Intel CPUs (as old as 6th-gen chips) are selling well too, we're told.

DDR3 motherboards are making a comeback, and if you think the world is going insane, well, the RAM price crisis is certainly crazy enough - and this apparent shift in China is the result of all the memory-related chaos.

RAM prices have reached insane levels, and it could get worse yet (Image Credit: Pixabay)
2

RAM prices have reached insane levels, and it could get worse yet (Image Credit: Pixabay)

VideoCardz reports that according to the Board Channels forum in China, sales of DDR3 motherboards have increased by two to three times - or possibly more than trebled - while bundles featuring these old mobos and past-gen Intel CPUs (6th to 9th-generation) are also selling well.

The post in question observes that the driving factor here is likely to be "a rebound in demand for lower priced builds", which is a translation, and it makes some sense that people might be seeking alternatives that allow them to avoid extremely pricey DDR5 or DDR4 RAM.

However, it seems a very drastic step to go back to the realm of DDR3, of course, but there's plenty of that RAM that can be had second-hand for very cheap prices (obviously enough, as it's not a great choice these days to say the least).

Plenty of DDR3 is kicking about on sale on the likes of auction sites or marketplaces thanks to old office PCs being retired (with the end of Windows 10 prompting more of that activity, no doubt).

And if you only need a PC for the most basic of computing tasks (emails, web surfing), then you can get by with a DDR3-powered machine. Although it's still hardly ideal, if you just need a simple PC, you likely don't want to deal with the ridiculous pricing now apparent with DDR4 (or DDR5). And it seems that this is the case in China, for a growing number of folks.