The reason is that RAM sticks are “keyed” based on their generation, meaning that the notch you see in RAM sticks, as pictured above, changes location based on the generation. A motherboard will either support DDR4 or DDR5, but not both. What won’t be backward compatible, however, are the motherboards. A number of companies are getting ready for the big RAM switch such as Corsair, Kingston, and TeamGroup.Īs with previous transitions, early DDR5-supporting processors will likely support both DDR4 RAM and DDR5. The first round of DDR5 is expected to appear at the same time as Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake CPUs-the latter half of 2021.
DDR5 is coming to a PC near you, but you need the right CPU and motherboard to support it.
