Even though Blue launched Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh processors just recently, Blue, through the voice of Robert Hallock, indicates that Raptor Lake still has a bright future. It would seem that the older generation of Blue processors remains an integral part of the company’s strategy. The reason is quite simple: they are the only CPUs to be DDR4 and DDR5 compatible!
Raptor Lake: Intel continues to bank on DDR4 support!
DDR4-compatible CPUs for even greater performance!
Obviously, the high price of DDR5 means that customers are looking for alternative solutions for assembling their PCs. That’s why we’ve seen the resurgence of AM4 and CPUs like the Ryzen 5 5500 and Ryzen 7 5800X from AMD. But Intel, through its Core i 14000s, also has solid references like the 14600Ks, which are always on the ball in terms of performance, and are DDR4 compatible. In fact, this is one of the CPUs we recommended in our buyer’s guide to counter the price of memory!
In any case, you can understand that when a RAM kit costs the price of a graphics card, it’s hard to want to turn to Arrow Lake/Refresh or more recent AM5 models. This is a time of savings.
New DDR4/DDR5 motherboards on the way?
Another solution to ensure a smooth transition from DDR4 to DDR5 would be for there to be more motherboards compatible with both memory standards. ASRock is a specialist in this field, and last December announced its H610M Combo. The latter featured two DDR4 and four DDR5 slots. But this was an entry-level model. It would be interesting to see what a similar offering would look like, but with a higher-end Z790 chipset, for example.
But as Robert Hallock points out:
“For many motherboard manufacturers, it all depends on where they want to position themselves and the opportunities they identify.”
In short, the blues don’t seem to be stopping their Raptor Lake CPUs any time soon, at least not until DDR5 prices fall back to acceptable levels. In the meantime, like the AM4 with AMD, these CPUs represent an affordable alternative by offering DDR4 support. Nevertheless, DDR5/DDR4 hybrid motherboards don’t seem to be attracting much interest, which is a shame, because these days, such solutions would be interesting.
