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this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Patient Gamers
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Next year it is going to be even lower with how prices are going. Upgrades are just not feasible anymore.
Glad I got a 9070XT just before everything went bust. I'll be sticking with DDR4 for a few years though.
I'm using 32GB of Corsair DDR4 I got back in 2016. Think I can safely say I got my moneys worth already and still intend to ride it into 2030 at this rate.
I hate to tell you this, but I had a DDR3 rig in 2011 and two of the four sticks of RAM died in 2021.
That means from regular gaming, the lifespan of RAM is about 10 years.
It's 2026 next year.
That's one datapoint and could depend on any number of factors, cooling manufacturer, uptime, etc. I have a couple of rigs 10+ years old running DDR3 with 0 failures. In fact in my lifetime I've only had one stick of ram ever go bad and that was ages ago and I tend to repurpose PCs a lot so they get some age on them.
Honestly I think DDR4 is the right call for an everyday-use PC anyway. I might be showing my ignorance here, but when I upgraded my PC I got DDR5-6000 and the memory training times are INSANE. The first few times I tried to boot I wound up restarting because 5 mins after hitting the button it still hadn't shown the manufacturer's logo and I assumed it was busted. Once it finally does finish the training, it usually doesn't have to do it again for a while... but sometimes it does! Totally randomly (as far as I can tell), I'll go for a quick reboot, maybe swapping from my Linux install back over to Windows or something, and what should be a 15 second wait is now suddenly a full 5+ minutes.
Near as I can tell, DDR5 Just Does That Sometimes??? How is that an upgrade!? I guess I'm probably seeing some performance gains from the faster timing, but man, sometimes I think I'd trade it in exchange for never having to wait on a black screen for minutes at a time.
You can turn off memory training in BIOS, fyi.
Well I suppose it may depend on the bios you have but I can't imagine any relatively modern one doesn't have the option. My partner's pc would take ages to boot until we turned it off, then it took seconds.
Yea you don't really get to choose though, unless you're willing to go with a 2 generations old CPU just to get DDR4. Even the newest generation is over a year old for AMD, the DDR4 compatible stuff is 5 years old now and leaves you no upgrade path.
Mind you, I'm on a Ryzen 3000 series CPU, I could still upgrade to a newer and more coreful AM4 CPU AND get more RAM without having to go DDR5. But anyone building in 2026 probably doesn't want to get a Ryzen 5000 series CPU anymore.
Yeah, I'm planning on leap-frogging this time for this very reason. I tend to get GPU-bottlenecked more often than not, so hopefully whatever GPU I pick up next year will extend my system long enough for a little more sanity to return.
of course i know, or id have put my money where my mouth is, and ram alone is too pricey for that now. id have to get a new motherboard too. i love my op cpu, this pc rocks when it's working (which is 99% of the time), but when training time comes it's still frustrating that the new shit is so busted for me
I have never heard of memory training? What is this? Something new with DDR5?
The general trend, yes.
But then again, my computer is now many years old (some components more than others) and I'm pretty sure I could play every release from this year on the highest graphic setting (or at least on "high") without performance issues.
What I'm trying to say is not "my PC is so great" but you you don't actually need a current-Gen, high end PC to play even recent triple-A titles. Eventually it'll get too old, but that is a very long time: probably close to a decade or something, if you individually upgrade some things occasionally.
You are absolutely incorrect. I have a really powerful modern computer, and I can't do this. Well, I can, just with low framerate or significant upscaling (the latter I would call not the highest settings anyway). I can run them on higher settings usually, but not maxed. Hell, some of the worse performance ones I need to turn down to get a framerate I find acceptable (at least 60 for most games, usually 100+).
I mostly don't care to play AAA titles anyway though. Not only are they performance hogs usually, I just don't find them interesting. I'd almost always rather play an indie game that wants to experiment.
First you state I'm "absolutely incorrect" then you repeat and confirm what I said:
This seems awfully close to the "at least on high" in my comment, so what is the problem with my statement?
I also purposely kept it relative and vague, because personal preferences differ wildly on what is meant by "I can run xxx", which you've basically doubled down on. I specifically do NOT expect 100fps in a triple-A on maxed out settings with ray tracing, and I thought that much was clear. But I can get to 100fps, with somewhat reduced settings, if that's a game where I'd need that. To be specific this time: my general target is usually around 60fps for more visual titles, but it can dip a bit below in busy/dense/hectic areas. It also shouldn't leave the 50s for significant amounts of time though.
That all being said, I also only rarely actually play AAA games. But I do play some indie games that are more on the demanding side, but then there's most games I play that should run in a toaster... Which is another reason I never upgraded. It's all still good enough.