DDR4 memory has been on the market for roughly two and a half years, but it's only now that we're seeing meaningful growth in adoption. It was supposed to be the end of the line for the DDR standard, making way for technologies like HBM2 or HMC. However, JEDEC has confirmed that development of the DDR5 specification has begun and will conclude next year. What does DDR5 promise? Double the density, double the speed, and lower power consumption.
DDR4 didn't do much to force mass adoption. On one hand, DDR3 modules maintained a good balance between performance and price; on the other, high-end RAM also suffered from the drop in PC sales. Fortunately, that's changing with the arrival of Ryzen and Kaby Lake chips. Interest in replacing entire platforms has grown, and that's essentially what determines whether manufacturers are willing to step up a notch, seeking a premium in their prices. The first reports of a successor to DDR4 emerged in mid-2016, but now JEDEC itself has confirmed that DDR5 is on its way.
What the New Standard Offers
The official announcement doesn't include any firm numbers, but DDR5 is expected to double the speed and density compared to DDR4. At the same time, it aims to reduce power consumption, forming a combination that sounds wonderful for the business world. In fact, the first stop for DDR5 is likely to be in servers, always hungry for bandwidth, virtualization, and resident applications. JEDEC has followed a pattern of roughly two years between the announcement of a new standard and its formal market debut, so everyday users should wait until 2019 or 2020 to have a bit of DDR5 on their desktops.
A Surprise Successor
The most interesting part is that DDR5 appears out of nowhere. All the arrows pointed to the end of DDR development, with expectations of following the path of HBM2 or Micron's Hybrid Memory Cube. Another alternative would be advancing non-volatile memories like Intel Optane, or JEDEC's NVDIMM standard. The DDR memory adventure will reach the end of the decade, but the priority must always remain the same: the users.
