DDR5 might be the last memory you ever get to install yourself

Published Sep 7, 2026, 4:30 PM EDT After a 7-year corporate stint, Tanveer found his love for writing and tech too much to resist. An MBA in Marketing and the owner of a PC building business, he writes on PC hardware, technology, and Windows. When not scouring the web for ideas, he can be found building PCs, watching anime, or playing Smash Karts on his RTX 3080 (sigh). It's no secret that memory prices will take years to return to their pre-2026 levels, if at all. The unprecedented global demand has pushed RAM prices to insane levels, and the end consumer is bearing the brunt of it. SSDs and GPUs have also suffered significant price hikes, and if that wasn't enough, consumers now have to adapt to modular memory disappearing completely. While soldered RAM has been part of laptops for years, desktops are now being brought into the fold. It started with mini PCs and compact towers, but there's no telling what the future of desktop memory holds for us. Newer upgradeable standards like CAMM2 are on the horizon, but they aren't the one-to-one replacement for DIMMs that some people think. The era of soldered memory being the dominant alternative might be closer than we think. Soldered RAM has all but engulfed the laptop market It's what the cool kids are using Although its memory is soldered, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 still lets users upgrade a few other components. Soldered RAM isn't a new concept. It was popularized by Apple with its MacBook Air and Pro models in the early 2010s, and others followed suit soon after. The motivation to transition from modular SO-DIMMs to soldered RAM is linked to space savings, performance, and battery efficiency, all of which are key considerations for ultrabooks and thin-and-light laptops. Another obvious reason is the additional revenue stream for manufacturers. Except for gaming, workstation, and some budget-to-midrange models, most premium and high-end laptops come with memory you can't change. What you pick at checkout is what you have to live with forever. Consumers used to adding or replacing LPDDR5 modules on their laptop might have to bid goodbye to the feature very soon. The hardware limitations of SO-DIMMs make them unsuitable for next-gen DDR6 RAM, so this is the last generation with user-serviceable memory, at least in the way we know it. Your next laptop will probably have soldered RAM or the emerging LPCAMM2 standard. LPCAMM2 offers an upgradeable alternative, but with a catch It won't replace everything else overnight As I mentioned, SO-DIMMs can't handle the hardware demands of DDR6 memory, so a new standard is being brought in. LPCAMM2 (and CAMM2) modules are engineered to tackle the intense signaling demands of DDR6 speeds, while being 64% smaller and 58% more energy-efficient than SO-DIMMs. These modules will not be soldered to the motherboard, but will be bolted on with screws, so they are user-replaceable as well. Many laptops have already adopted this standard for DDR5 memory. Models like Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 adopted it two years ago, followed by others like Dell Pro Max 16 Plus and the newer ThinkPad P1 Gen 8. CAMM2 is said to combine the performance benefits of soldered RAM with the flexibility of SO-DIMMs, but the latter isn't as simple as it sounds. Going by the current designs, laptops feature only a single LPCAMM2 module, so users can't just add another one to increase their memory capacity. The existing module will have to be replaced. While it's not as bad as soldered RAM, it's also not as user-friendly as SO-DIMMs, which is why I believe that LPCAMM2 adoption will not be as rapid as the industry believes. Hence, soldered memory, SO-DIMMs, and LPCAMM2 will have a period of overlap where some manufacturers continue to stick to the older standards. Even desktops aren't immune from this trend Soldered RAM on desktops isn't imaginary anymore What worries me more is that this trend isn't limited to laptops. Even desktop PCs have started to hop on the soldered memory train. We've seen it happen on mini PCs and all-in-one PCs, where compact designs are paramount. APUs and AI-focused PCs require very high-speed RAM connectivity, which is only possible with soldered LPDDR memory. Moreover, models like the Framework Desktop have also adopted soldered RAM to remove performance bottlenecks from AI and graphics workloads. CAMM2 is coming with DDR6 for desktops, but the parallel march toward soldered RAM should have PC enthusiasts concerned. The introduction of non-upgradeable memory on regular desktops might not happen overnight, but the direction the industry is heading in is pretty clear. The DIY PC market will use user-serviceable memory in the form of existing DIMMs and upcoming CAMM2 modules for a few years, but the future might change that. Soldered memory improves performance, signal stability, and brings more money into manufacturers' pockets. Its eventual arrival on desktops might happen sooner rather than later. DDR6 will not just replace DDR5; it will also make upgradeable memory outdated Owing to market forces, the introduction of next-gen DDR6 memory will naturally be delayed. That said, the industry is well on the way toward the permanent adoption of soldered RAM, whether it's laptops or desktops. The performance, battery efficiency, and form factor benefits are clear, and manufacturers won't let go of the additional revenue.