G.Skill has clarified its position on the higher costs of its EXPO ULL series memory kits compared to regular EXPO DDR5 kits.
G.Skill's Regular EXPO DDR5 Memory Costs Much Lower Than Its EXPO ULL Kits, But That Won't Remain The Case For Long
At Computex, AMD introduced its EXPO ULL (Ultra-Low Latency) memory technology, which is adopted by various memory manufacturers to bring much lower latencies to the AM5 platform, which should help improve performance in various applications, including gaming.
AMD's David McAfee stated during the Computex week that the EXPO ULL memory kits will be priced at a similar price point to standard EXPO options. The pricing would obviously be a bit higher than regular EXPO kits, owing to their impressively low latencies, but that didn't turn out to be the case.
G.Skill's latest Trident Z5 NEOX DDR5 memory kits were listed by various retailers, including Newegg, and immediately, the price differences were seen to be much wider than what was promised. For example, the baseline 32 GB kit (2 x 16 GB) with DDR5-6000 specs and CL36 timings is priced at $499 US for the standard EXPO variant and $549 for the EXPO ULL variant. In the higher-end category, the price difference gets even wider with a $500 US difference on the top-end EXPO ULL kit with CL26 timings.
| Memory Kit | Capacity | Speed | Primary Timings | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trident Z5 NeoX | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 26-36-36-32 | $1,099 |
| Trident Z5 Neo | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 26-36-36-96 | $699 |
| Trident Z5 NeoX | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 28-36-36-32 | $999 |
| Trident Z5 Neo | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 28-36-36-96 | $559 |
| Trident Z5 NeoX | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 30-38-38-32 | $619 |
| Trident Z5 Neo | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 30-38-38-96 | $544 |
| Trident Z5 NeoX | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 36-36-36-76 | $549 |
| Trident Z5 Neo | 2x 16 GB | 6000 MT/s | 36-36-36-96 | $499 |
Immediately, there was a backlash from the PC community on the prices, which was justified, but G.Skill has clarified that the higher prices were never its intention, and the statement they gave us makes sense as to why we see such a big price disparity.
Previously, David McAfee from AMD mentioned that the new AMD EXPO Ultra Low Latency kits would be introduced at a similar price point to standard AMD EXPO memory kits.
Currently, we have maintained pricing for our AMD EXPO ULL memory kits in line with our non-ULL products. However, due to the recent increase in DRAM IC prices, along with retailers still selling inventory purchased before these cost increases, a pricing gap has emerged in the market. This is the reason for the difference highlighted in recent media articles.
G.Skill to Wccftech
According to G.Skill, the pricing for the existing EXPO DDR5 kits is lower than that of the EXPO ULL kits because the majority of the inventory was stocked prior to or in the early days of the DRAM crisis, which has shaken the tech industry. EXPO ULL being new means that the ICs used by these DDR5 modules are of much higher cost than what it was a few months back, and given that further price increases are expected in the coming months and shortages persist, even these existing EXPO non-ULL kits should see a price hike.
Even Non-ULL EXPO Kits Are Much More Expensive Than What They Used To Cost Earlier This Year
The same $499 US baseline CL36 / 6000 MT/s kit (32 GB) used to cost around $100-$150 US before the price hike, so that alone is a 4-5x bump. And the existing prices should only last until the stock does. Once the existing inventories are over, and retailers get new stock (if they can even manage to get decent figures), they would be priced very close to the EXPO ULL kits.
Current market analysts and industry sources expect further price hikes in the coming quarters, with up to 50% by Q3 and another 40% by Q4. So that should give you a sense of what's going to happen in a couple of months, and these shortages are going to last until 2028.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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