“Partial workaround” wou’d probably be more accurate. As the article body points out, DDR5 SO-DIMM prices are also up, albeit not as much as DDR5 DIMM prices.
But it’s substantial enough of a price difference to be interesting, especially with larger-capacity SO-DIMMs.
EDIT: For those not familiar, SO-DIMMs are “laptop memory” and DIMMs are “desktop memory”.
The 48GB x 2 kit of so-dimm i bought in the summer is 5x the price I paid for it… If anything it seems so-dimm is worse right now
I bought a little 32 GB kit (x2 16GB) of DDR4 in February for ~$56; It is now $193.82, or about three and a half times the earlier price, so I’m going to have to agree with you that it isn’t really better (and may actually be worse for DDR5). I bought a refurb laptop this autumn with DDR5 RAM because it cost only slightly more than the individual kit would have been (and it came with a TB SSD and reasonable CPU, but has on-board graphics).
If SODIMM were much cheaper, it might be worth the performance degradation to use an adapter, but as it stands, I don’t think it is. If it comes down to what’s available to someone on an individual basis, it could be a good option.
Of course, everyone is hoarding them now.
That feels so bad for signal integrity, especially at 5+ GT/s
It is. As Salem Techsperts tested on their YouTube channel, you often have to downclock the RAM for it to actually function without errors.
However, with the prices for RAM still being so high, you could save a decent amount of money with this if you’re willing to keep your speeds a little lower.
If you’re slowing it down beyond ddr4 or ddr3 Levels, you’re better buying an older system that’s not as inflated. Though related to that, the price of ddr4 motherboards has shot up as there’s a shortage due to people pairing it with affordable ram
Didnt LTT also do this, only remember it being slower but usable.
I have no clue. I usually watch a good bit of LTT but I don’t recall watching a video when they did this, though I’m sure I could have just missed it.
Does seem like something they’d do though.
Found it! https://youtu.be/PF8Dfgl3Wx4
Omg the comments on the thread regarding it are priceless:
RadiatingLight Posted September 1, 2020
It’s sketchy to say the least. Just buy 8GB DDR4, it’s not even huge cost savings compared to buying the adapter.
I wonder if the next generation of memory will only have a SO-DIMM pinout so they don’t have to split limited supply. Maybe larger “desktop or highend laptop” modules will be physically longer like 2230/2280/22110 SSDs
Horrible idea
