32GB of DDR4 beats 16GB of DDR5 for gaming in 2025.

Yes, DDR5 is faster, but capacity wins for gaming right now. More games are crossing 16GB RAM usage, especially with background apps, and 32GB of DDR4 will give you smoother performance than 16GB of DDR5 when you run out of memory.

DDR4 is mature, cheap, and reliable. 32GB kits are under $60. DDR5 is still pricey per gigabyte, and the real-world gaming gains over DDR4 are modest—maybe 5-10% in CPU-bound scenarios, and often zero at higher resolutions where GPU is the bottleneck.

The only reason to pick 16GB DDR5 is if you’re building on a platform that only supports DDR5 (like Intel LGA 1700 with a B760 board that doesn’t offer DDR4 versions, or AM5). But if you have the choice, 32GB DDR4 is the smarter, cheaper bet for today’s games. Future-proofing? By the time you actually need 32GB of DDR5 speeds, you’ll want a whole new platform anyway.

Get the 32GB DDR4. It’s not close.