IS DDR5 RAM WORTH THE HYPE?
DDR4 RAM was released back in 2014 and now after 8 Years DDR5 RAM is announced. Is it worth to upgrade. DDR5 provides twice the bandwidth and density of DDR4 while reducing power consumption. Higher bandwidth translates to faster processing for memory-intensive applications such as games, video and image editors, 3D tools, and browsers.
Additionally, all DDR5 memory will have on-die ECC, which provides error detection and correction before sending data to a CPU. DDR5 ECC is expected to improve reliability and reduce defect rates.
| Max UDIMM (Unbuffered) Capacity | 32 GB | 128 GB |
|---|---|---|
| Bandwidth | 12800–25600 MB/s | 38400–57600 MB/s |
| Transfer Rate | 1600–3200 MT/s | 4800–7200 MT/s |
| Base Frequency | 800–1600 MHz | 2400–3600 MHz |
| Effective Frequency | 1600–3200 MHz | 4800–7200 MHz |
| Voltage | 1.2 V | 1.1 V |
On-die ECC | No | Yes |
But Is it worth to upgrade from DDR4?
Depending on the games you play, DDR5 memory can offer little to no performance gain, and this will be true for most titles. The best performing examples show up to a 20% boost which is significant, and here we're comparing premium DDR4-3600 memory to premium DDR5-6000, with the DDR5 kit coming in at a ~70% price premium.
Clearly DDR5 isn't worth it right now, but we already knew that. Pricing aside, DDR5 has little to offer over DDR4 in today's games with an Alder Lake processor for the most part. That being the case, budget conscious shoppers should only consider DDR5 at a 10%, or maybe a 20% price premium at most, when going for a flagship part like the Core i9-12900K.
The value equation is considerably worse for DDR5 when comparing sweet spot memory like DDR4-3600 CL16, for example. The G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB can be had for just $135 and that's for the 32GB capacity kit. Meanwhile, the cheapest DDR5 32GB kit listed on Newegg right now is Corsair's Vengeance for $310 and it's out of stock. That's a 130% price premium when comparing with sweet spot DDR4 memory, yikes.
The motherboards which are compatible with DDR5 may take time to come in the market .
Benchmarks
Starting with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, we see a 13% to 15% performance improvement with newer DDR5 memory, taking the average frame rate from 121 fps at 1080p, to 137 fps. But more impressive than that was the 17% performance boost seen at 1440p when looking at the 1% lows with a 12% boost to the average frame rate.
As expected, the margins close up at 4K where the GPU becomes the key limiting factor, but even so I was surprised to see a 9% boost to the 1% low and a 13% uplift for the average frame rate. So DDR5 is offering a clear performance advantage in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
DDR5 available right now is going to be terrible when compared to DDR5 memory in a year or two...
You could argue that a 20% premium is worth it given we're already seeing examples of 20% gains in games. But you're better off saving the money for a future upgrade because the DDR5 available right now is going to be terrible when compared to DDR5 memory in a year or two. We saw the same thing happen with DDR4, and DDR3 before it.
As we explained in our first Alder Lake review, you can make a reasonable case for DDR5 with the Core i9-12900K, given it's such an expensive CPU. But our advice for gamers is to go with the much better value Core i7-12700KF for just $395 -- and at that point the DDR5 package is 25% more expensive -- and then almost 30% more with the 12600K.
Now that we've compared DDR4 and DDR5 memory across a massive range of games, the next step is to provide a detailed memory scaling video for Alder Lake and that's already in the works. The plan is to compare a wide range of DDR4 and DDR5 memory to find the sweet spot for Intel 12th-gen series, in both games and applications. Stay tuned for that.
0 Comments
If you have any query please let me know in the comment section.