It was to be expected that the DDR5 RAM would not be cheap at the start. 400 US dollars for 32 GByte DDR5-4800 is still more than expected, because even very fast DDR4 memory is currently available for almost half the price.
32 GByte DDR4-4266 currently costs just under 210 euros, DDR4-4400 is available from 218 euros. In the USA, too, DDR4-4000 is available well below the US $ 200 mark, which is why the classification for the new DDR5 memory is quickly given and could also be in euros in this country. 400 US dollars for 32 GByte DDR5-4800 according to JEDEC specifications and thus not even overclocked or as a timing-optimized variant are also an announcement there.
Because that is exactly what they are Teamgroups first modules for the mass market, which are even dubbed Elite including JEDEC in advertising. That means 16 GByte capacity per module with timings of CL40-40-40-77 and a voltage of 1.1 volts.
For a mainstream product, such as Intel's Alder Lake CPU as the first solution with support for DDR5, a high RAM price is of no help. If the RAM costs just as much as the board plus CPU, people tend to look around for an alternative. At the start of DDR4 memory it was a little different: It was also around 50 percent more expensive than DDR3, but initially planned for the high-end segment in the form of Haswell-E, in which completely different prices were paid anyway.
The platform will not come until the end of the year
In the end the hope remains that the team group will only makes the early start pay well. According to the manufacturer, the first dealers could already have modules in stock at the end of June, but no later than July. That would be well before the start of a suitable product platform in which these modules even fit. Alder Lake is not expected until Q4/2021, the OEM environment may already announce something in the third quarter. At the end of the year, many memory manufacturers want to have jumped on the DDR5 bandwagon, which is accompanied by the hope of lower prices. But that remains to be seen for the time being, it took DDR4 almost a year before the prices were more or less aligned with DDR3.