Upgrade to 32GB now.

DDR5 isn’t worth waiting for yet. By the time it’s truly mainstream and reasonably priced, you’ll want a new CPU and motherboard anyway. Meanwhile, 32GB of DDR4 is cheap, stable, and makes a real difference right now for multitasking, heavy browser tabs, or the occasional game.

DDR5 has been out for a couple years, but it’s still expensive and the performance gains are modest outside specific workloads like video encoding or high-end gaming at 4K. For most people—even power users—the difference between DDR4 and DDR5 at the same speed isn’t noticeable in daily use. And if you’re on a platform that supports DDR4, upgrading RAM today costs around $60-80 for a good 32GB kit. That’s a no-brainer.

Waiting also locks you into a future platform upgrade cycle. If you buy DDR5 now on a current-gen board, you’ll be paying a premium for early-adopter pricing, and by the time DDR5 is cheap, you’ll probably want a new board anyway. So upgrade now with DDR4, save money, and when DDR5 is mature, you’ll build a new system from scratch.

Future you gets 32GB now and a clean upgrade path later.