In context: Early adopters of Intel's LGA 1700 platform will have to choose between DDR5 or DDR4 memory when buying a motherboard, as the company's Alder Lake CPUs will only work with one type of memory at any given time. The good news is that enthusiast-grade DDR5-7000 modules are coming, but don't expect them to be cheap.

Now that Intel's unlocked Alder Lake desktop processors have started shipping, companies will be rushing to offer early adopters the best DDR5 memory that money can buy. This became apparent last week, when Gigabyte published a list of supported DDR5 modules for its Z690 Aorus Tachyon motherboard.

Gigabyte's list includes everything from modules that work within the standard JEDEC specification and up to DDR5-7000 modules from multiple vendors that will deliver a higher bandwidth at the cost of increased power consumption and heat.

Apparently, you'll soon be able to purchase 16-gigabyte sticks of CL40 DDR5-7000 memory from companies like Adata and TeamGroup, as well as Gigabyte's own Aorus sub brand. The 7000 MT/s data transfer rate is afforded by increasing the input voltage to 1.5V from the standard 1.1V spec, but the good news is that you won't need any exotic cooling to deal with the added heat. Earlier this week, G.Skill revealed it was able to overclock its Trident Z5 DDR5 memory to 3,500 MHz (7,000 MHz effective speed).

All of these high-speed memory modules integrate Samsung's 14 nm DDR5 chips, possibly a model that is the spiritual successor of the highly sought-after B-die from yesteryear. We have yet to see any official announcements for these DDR5-7000 sticks, but one thing is for sure --- they'll cost you an arm and a leg.

As of writing, even a basic 32-gigabyte DDR5-4800 kit from Crucial or GeIL will set you back anywhere between $211 and $428. PNY's XLR8 DDR5-4800 kits are expected to hit the shelves later this month with a price tag in the same range, and the company is also readying CL36 Mako RGB DDR5-5600 modules that will be capable of up to 6400 MHz effective speeds.