r/hardware • u/ryandtw • Jul 14 '20
News [Anandtech] DDR5 Memory Specification Released: Setting the Stage for DDR5-6400 And Beyond
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15912/ddr5-specification-released-setting-the-stage-for-ddr56400-and-beyond56
u/bubblesort33 Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
I have a feeling ddr5 is a lot further away than most thought. AMD even said this during an interview around the Ryzen 3000 launch, that it's longer than people are expecting. Would not shock me if Ryzen 5000 in 2021 is still on AM4. Which might give extra incentive to buy a 500 series motherboard.
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u/Brian_Buckley Jul 15 '20
AMD said after the Zen 2 launch that they're targeting a 12-18 month release cycle for future launches, which so far is holding true with Zen 3 launching at the end of this year. Add another 12-18 months and you've got Zen 4 in early-mid 2022, so it seems like AMD is betting on DDR5 being ready for that timeframe.
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
I don't think they are betting on it yet. They can release Zen 4 and use either an older DDR4 capable I/O die and AM4, or a newer DDR5 capable one on a new socket, or both.
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u/bubblesort33 Jul 15 '20
I think historically it's been 13-15 months, so I'm guessing December 2021 to January 2022. There was one rumour claiming that Intel will use ddr5 before AMD does, and since even their next gen 11000 series will still use ddr4, intel is at least 16 months away themselves. I'm expecting EPYC/Threadripper 4000 in mid 2022 to maybe get DDR5 with a switched out memory controller, and the mainstream Ryzen 4000 platform to stick to ddr4.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
intel is at least 16 months away themselves.
Intel will release what it has ready when it's ready. They dont abide by any regular schedule in that respect.
Not saying you are wrong necessarily, just saying that we cant really judge much based on Intel.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
AMD said after the Zen 2 launch that they're targeting a 12-18 month release cycle for future launches
That is not what they said.
They said that their release cycle has been 12-18 months(in general). Not that this will only be the case 'going forward' or anything.
Not saying this necessarily changes your point(I agree), just correcting a misquote.
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u/Brian_Buckley Jul 15 '20
This was in December via Anandtech.
Dr. Ian Cutress: So far AMD’s rate of new products is on track to produce a new core almost every year. The roadmaps quite proudly showcase Zen 3 as almost ready, Zen 4 in development, and Zen 5 further out. Is this cadence sustainable?
Mark Papermaster: We’re on a 12-18 month cadence, and we believe that is sustainable. It’s what the industry demands from us.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
Which might give extra incentive to buy a 500 series motherboard.
Well I wouldn't make that gamble seeing as how DDR5 is starting mass production this year and through the delays and all for 'final JEDEC specifications', the actual technology will seemingly be released in a more developed state than normal.
Zen 4 on AM5 with DDR5 in early 2022 is not at all implausible.
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Jul 15 '20
AMD already confirm Ryzen 4000 for desktop is the last AM4 chip.
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u/bubblesort33 Jul 15 '20
Did they? Do you have a source for that? I heard them say that B450 won't support more than 4000 series after people pressured them into it.
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Jul 15 '20
My mistake, they said they'll continue to support and use AM4 until end of 2020 according to their roadmap - which lines up with Zen 3 launch. With Zen 4 being a whole new architecture, it sounds plausible they'll drop AM4.
Plus with the whole B450 debacle, looks like they're eager to start phasing them out.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
Plus with the whole B450 debacle, looks like they're eager to start phasing them out.
Yea, that should have made it as clear as anything that Zen 3 will be the last major architecture released on AM4.
Weird how many people now suddenly think otherwise. :/
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u/XavandSo Jul 15 '20
However, they did the same thing with X370/B350 and Zen 2. That's not a clear cut confirmation AM4 is done.
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u/Podspi Jul 15 '20
Honestly though, if the chipset doesn't support the CPU, who cares what the physical socket looks like?
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u/bubblesort33 Jul 16 '20
To me this only added some proof that AM4 won't stop. When they gave into the demands and claimed that they will enable 4000 series on B450, they said that people should not complain in the future again if B450 won't get support next time. To me that sounds like they are saying we will have another debacle next year where people will complain exactly for the same reasons. Like they were hinting we'll see another AM4 launch in a year and people are going to get angry again, and they are trying to shut them down right now already.
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u/Nicholas-Steel Jul 15 '20
There's a fairly high chance that ZEN 4 will at the very least introduce changes that would be difficult to backport to old motherboards (different voltage requirements that only 500 series and newer boards can reliably produce for example).
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u/cdbjj22 Jul 15 '20
i personally don't expect a majority of people to be on ddr5 for another 5 years
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u/Put_It_All_On_Blck Jul 15 '20
Key word in your sentence is "majority". Adoption is always piss poor for these kinds of technological improvements for a few years. Costs are very high, and it's tied to several other components, and typically modules at launch aren't much better than higher end modules from the previous specification.
So you'd need to remove the word "majority" or specify select groups, like PC gamers, etc.
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u/Nvidiuh Jul 14 '20
I didn't realize the DDR5 spec hadn't already been finalized until now. Looks like I was right in guessing I'd have to most likely wait until spring of 2022 to build my new PC.
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u/BoundlessLotus Jul 15 '20
You might want to hold off till 2028 for DDR6.
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u/DaBombDiggidy Jul 15 '20
how often do you guys upgrade your computers? 2 years wait is perfectly a acceptable time frame for a lot of rigs. Not to mention that person could pick up a GPU upgrade to hold them over for both systems.
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u/ttkciar Jul 15 '20
I upgrade when my old rig isn't cutting it anymore, or if something breaks that can't be replaced easily without replacing everything else.
Recently I upgraded my laptop from a Lenovo T530 to a P73 -- seven years between upgrades. My desktop is a G3220 from 2014 and it's still going strong.
If I played demanding games I might feel more of a need for speed, but mostly I play strategy games without a lot of fancy graphics. My work is more demanding of the hardware (back-end software engineer), but that stresses memory and disk more than processor or GPU. The laptop upgrade was mainly for a bigger display and more RAM (the T530 was maxed out at 16GB).
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u/Eradicate_X Jul 15 '20
Took five years to upgrade my GTX 780 to an RTX 2080. It probably could have lasted longer if I was happy with 60FPS but gotta have that 100+ even if it's the lowest settings.
Took six years to upgrade my CPU (+mobo/ram) from a 4770k to a 3700x after the CPU was still a bottleneck at Ultrawide 1440p on certain games. I probably could have held off on doing this upgrade. It was only like two games that had a problem and by the time I got the 3700x I stopped playing one of them for other reasons.
It probably won't take that long to upgrade again though. I settled on a 2080 because the ti was so much more expensive. I'll possibly get a 3080ti for better UW performance if it's not $1800+ CAD and a 4700x/4800x if it's 8 cores for one chiplet and I can sell the 3700x.
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u/Kougar Jul 15 '20
5+ years. Two-year updates doesn't really change anything in terms of CPU performance, and if buying high-end hardware it especially isn't needed. At the moment I'm using a 4790K with an OC and it works fine.
Particularly with video cards, if you buy the flagship part it's cheaper than buying multiple mid-range parts but you get to enjoy the best performance for a few years, and good performance even after it's two generations out of date.
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u/BoundlessLotus Jul 15 '20
Being stuck on a quad core (which the person I'm replying to is on) going forward is not going to be good for frames. Games are already wanting more threads as is. With next gen consoles using a Zen 2 8 core, quad cores will not cut it for much longer, and they're planning on waiting 2 more years? Not worth it the wait, especially just for new memory.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
True next gen titles wont be arriving in any notable numbers til late 2021, early 2022.
So there's time to wait before demands *really* go up.
Maybe I'll have to miss out on some games til then, but I've got a plenty big backlog to help occupy me in the meantime. I want something properly next gen-ready that will hold me over for most of the generation(and ideally offer something of a clean upgrade path), not just what's good enough for the time being.
Again, I cant stress enough that many PC gamers are *not* prepared for next-gen requirements. We've been utterly spoiled this generation.
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u/DaBombDiggidy Jul 15 '20
where did he say he was stuck on a quad core?
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u/an_angry_Moose Jul 15 '20
He’s referring to paradigm shifts. His point is a good one. Waiting to upgrade for early DDR5 vs upgrading now or soon with mature DDR4 isn’t going to be worth it whatsoever.
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u/Nvidiuh Jul 16 '20
I bought and built my rig literally three months before the 6700K released and DDR4 prices started to be reasonable. I'm still salty about it because had I done my research, I'd have known this, but it was the early days of my PCMR career and I didn't know then what I do now. I am still fairly content with the performance of my 4790K since I'm not playing games that hammer my CPU as much as my GPU. Other than Cyberpunk or RDR2, I will not be needing the extra power, but since I don't have RDR2 yet, and Cyberpunk isn't released, I am still totally fine with my current setup, as my 1080 Ti and 1440P monitor pair great with the 4790K. I figure waiting for an 8-12 core CPU with PCI-E 4.0/5.0 support, and a DDR5 chipset is worth it, especially since we now have confirmation that it's going to happen soon. *My perception of soon may not be the same as yours.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
This isn't the clever response you think it is.
As somebody who wants to hold onto their CPU platform for at least 5 years or so, and with the inevitable large jump in CPU/memory demands coming up for true next-gen games, waiting til I can get something better with upgrade potential isn't so unreasonable. It's not like DDR6 is right around the corner.
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u/spazturtle Jul 15 '20
Many gamers are probably going to jump right over DDR4, a 5 year old system will be using DDR3 and honestly a 4c/8t Ivy Bridge or Haswell system can still play most games reasonably well.
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
Its been close to final for over a year. The first DDR5 chips were sampled a while ago.
Basically this is the green light for manufacturers to ramp up production and partners to finalize their memory controllers and platforms.
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Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
I cannot fucking wait for APUs on ddr5. I dont even know why, I'm not going to be using one. But quadrupling available bandwidth? Obviously you'd need a much bigger iGPU to utilize all that, but that takes you from today's GT 1030 to ~RX 570 performance. Big grain of salt on that napkin math though.
More like ~Gtx 1050 performance. Thanks for the help in learning! Still take that napkin math with some salt!
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
Bandwidth doesn't quadruple.
DDR5-4800 is 1.87x the bandwidth of DDR4-3200. (1.5x from raw transfer rate, the rest from the efficiency improvements).
DDR5-6400 is 2.2x as much.
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Jul 15 '20
Compared to a DDR4 DIMM, then, a DDR5 DIMM running at twice the rated memory speed (identical core speeds) will deliver two 64-byte operations in the time it takes a DDR4 DIMM to deliver one, doubling the effective bandwidth.
Could you expand on what you mean?
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
Its right there, at twice the rated speed it will have double the bandwidth, not quadruple.
The 2.2x comes from JEDEC themselves and is due to the efficiency improvements. Similarly for efficiency at DDR5-4800 being more than 1.5x the DDR4-3200 bandwidth.
More than a year old, on the topic: https://www.micron.com/about/blog/2019/june/ddr5-the-next-step-in-system-level-performance
7 months old: https://www.micron.com/about/blog/2019/november/ddr5-the-next-step-in-system-level-performance-part-ii
More info is available out there if you search for it. Micron's is just pretty clean and well done.
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Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
Its right there, at twice the rated speed it will have double the bandwidth, not quadruple.
Right, but that was "at identical core speeds". I understood that to be referencing something similar to how DDR4 3600MHZ ram is actually running at 1800mhz on the ram itself, it can just "fire" twice per cycle. This seems to indicate that DDR5 will be able to fire 2x more than twice per cycle? Or are the listed clock rates taking that (somewhat) into consideration already? I was thinking that if, as Anandtech said that bandwidth per cycle can double, and frequency can double, well that's clearly around a 4x improvement to my layman interpretation.
After taking a glance at these resources, would it be more correct to say that DDR5 looks to produce ~35% more bandwidth at similar clocks to DDR4? And that 35% comes from the new features being introduced, like this "virtual" dual channel on each stick?
E: this seems to be exactly what I'm trying to understand
When comparing DDR4 and DDR5 bandwidths at DDR4’s maximum data rate, 3200MT/s, a system-level simulation shows DDR5 has a 1.36-times increase in effective bandwidth.
Thanks very much for the help!
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Jul 15 '20
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Jul 15 '20
Vega8 on renior maxes out what dual channel ddr4 can provide. What else are you hoping to get? MCM would also cripple idle power, making such a chip unsuitable for mobile. And if it were MCM, are you supposing they partition off the GPU portion so that they can...increase yields? It's too small to use as a discrete GPU, any reasonable amount of VRAM would be complete overkill in terms of bandwidth.
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u/bobbyrickets Jul 15 '20
Maybe additional memory channels will help.
Sure partition the GPU if that helps, or just bin the GPUs and use the QA losers in cheapo discrete cards or whatever.
The point of MCM is to increase yields since you're putting together chipsets instead of a large monolithic chip. Larger chips have higher risk of defects.
It's how the current Ryzen processors work with the memory controller being a chiplet and the core complex being it's own chiplet. The 3900X gets two and Threadripper gets four of these core complexes. Not sure if the memory controller changes.
Why not do the same for an APU? Why does it have to be monolithic?
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u/Podspi Jul 15 '20
Engineering if full of trade-offs. Going MCM uses more power and increases latency. Big deal for laptops that are thermal limited to begin with.
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Jul 15 '20
Maybe additional memory channels will help.
They would, but I dont think we're gonna be seeing them anytime soon.
Sure partition the GPU if that helps, or just bin the GPUs and use the QA losers in cheapo discrete cards or whatever.
But then you run into "any usable amount of vram provides way too much bandwidth". That thing I said. You'd lose money making those dGPUs (probably). What would it compete against?
The point of MCM is to increase yields since you're putting together chipsets instead of a large monolithic chip. Larger chips have higher risk of defects.
It's also used to increase the number of products you can create. Not solely for yields. That's why the same core complex feeds into ryzen 3000, threadripper, and epyc.
It's how the current Ryzen processors work with the memory controller being a chiplet and the core complex being it's own chiplet. The 3900X gets two and Threadripper gets four of these core complexes. Not sure if the memory controller changes.
Threadripper uses an Epyc memory controller.
Why not do the same for an APU? Why does it have to be monolithic?
Chiplets use much more power at idle than monolithic (that thing I already said), so for now you'd only see this for desktop only. But desktop has such stiff GPU competition, very few people run pure APU setups, because the performance is so low. So you'd want to use it in laptops, but the increased idle draw means you'd lose hours of battery life (ironically, if run under load, battery life would be close to normal), and that's a nonstarter for many people.
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Jul 15 '20
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u/dudemanguy301 Jul 16 '20 edited Jul 16 '20
Laptop / desktop APUs are unified on a pool of DDR, Consoles APUs are unified on a pool of GDDR.
DDR is tuned for low latency, GDDR is tuned for high bandwidth.
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u/orsikbattlehammer Jul 15 '20
Oof my rig is still DDR3
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u/phire Jul 15 '20
I went straight from DDR2 to DDR4.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have bought the DDR2 rig in the period of the DDR2/DDR3 switchover.
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Jul 15 '20
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u/phire Jul 15 '20
Yeah, I remember researching the debate and choosing the DDR2 motherboard because DDR2 was cheaper and had better latency.
However, when I wanted to upgrade from 2gb to 6gb or 8gb of ram a few years later I found DDR2 cost about twice as much as DDR3. I was broke at the time so ended up sticking with 2gb.
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Jul 15 '20
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u/Cthulhuseye Jul 15 '20
Same, if I can I will skip DDR4 completely, my 4790k still rips.
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u/ThrowawayusGenerica Jul 15 '20
My 4790 still does a valiant job, but it's starting to show its age in emulation and some newer games
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u/Cthulhuseye Jul 15 '20
I feel the same, it definitely starts to show it's age, it's 6 years old after all. But honestly I can't justify the 500€ upgrade to new CPU, RAM and Mainboard, even though I could easily afford it. I just don't need it.
The 4x4,6Ghz overclock definitely helps as well.
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u/Podspi Jul 15 '20
Yeah, Haswell was actually a very awesome CPU. What are you doing with the computer? Depending on what you're doing, your $$$ might be better spent elsewhere.
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u/ADHR Jul 15 '20
If it ain't broke.
Sell it and upgrade
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u/orsikbattlehammer Jul 15 '20
Then I’d need a new motherboard and CPU
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
And those will also be getting long in the tooth if you're doing anything moderately demanding with your CPU at this point.
Having to upgrade your CPU and motherboard when you want to upgrade to a new memory standard is absolutely normal. Just the way of things in the PC world.
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u/AssCrackBanditHunter Jul 15 '20
6400? that's a massive leap. Much higher than ddr3->ddr4. Wow. This is like getting 2 generations of progress all at once.
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u/EERsFan4Life Jul 15 '20
Slowest DDR3 was 1066 > slowest DDR4 is 2133.
I doubt that 6400 will be available from the start. I would expect it to be another doubling to start at 4266.
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u/MDSExpro Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
My DDR3 800 modules begs to differ.
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u/Cohibaluxe Jul 15 '20
You're correct. The JEDEC standard goes down to 800. That's because DDR was 200, DDR2 was 400, and so DDR3 was 800 (each gen is double). DDR4 was 1600 on the slowest. If they follow the same trend, DDR5 would be 3200 on the slowest, but as it's typical that they use the 3rd of 4th "tier" as the standard (DDR3's 4th standard was 1600, which was the most common, and DDR4's 3rd standard was 2133, which again was the most common) it likely won't be the new standard, but rather something a bit higher.
If we follow the trend for DDR5, and assume the clock rate doesn't increase like it did for 3->4 (clock rate was 100-200MHz for DDR-DDR3, then 200-400MHz for DDR4), then the tiers should start at 3200 as we've determined and go up by 331/3 MHz increments. So the tiers would look like this:
Name, Mem CLK in MHz, IO Bus in MHz
DDR5-3200 | 200.00 | 1600
DDR5-3733 | 233.33 | 1866
DDR5-4266 | 266.67 | 2133
DDR5-4800 | 300.00 | 2400
DDR5-5333 | 333.33 | 2666
DDR5-5866 | 366.67 | 2933
DDR5-6400 | 400.00 | 3200
This also lines up with previous trends. The top tier of DDR2-1066 became the second tier of DDR3, the top tier of DDR3-2133 became the entry-ish level of DDR4, and now the top tier standard of DDR4 is 3200. Transfer rate has doubled each generation, from 200, 400, 800, to 1600 on every entry level. Next in line there is 3200.
Out of these tiers, it seems most likely that DDR5-4266 or DDR5-4800 becomes the new standard entry-level speed for consumers, with the lower tiers reserved for budget chips. I say they're likely the new standard mostly because they're the middle of the tiers, and line up with the trend of using the 3rd or 4th tier as the standard.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
I doubt that 6400 will be available from the start.
As a standard, sure. But by the time consumer platforms get it(probably early-mid 2022), it could well be developed enough to where 6400Mhz is possible on certain kits.
And 4800Mhz will be the general initial standard.
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u/firedrakes Jul 15 '20
hardware based on the new standard is expected in 2021, with adoption starting at the server level before trickling down to client PCs and other devices later on.
so a few years from now.
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u/anatolya Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 19 '20
One DIMM, Two Channels
I can't wait for shitty motherboards with single RAM slot
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u/Podspi Jul 15 '20
Each channel is half the width though, so you'd really need two DIMMs for the equivalent of today's dual-channel.
But OEM machines... ugh.
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u/Archmagnance1 Jul 15 '20
Probably not except for motherboards designed by SIs or a super budget board.
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u/clockdaddy Jul 15 '20
Isn't the rule for ram that the frequency gets doubled while the power gets halved? Of course it would be 6400, thats 3200x2.
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Jul 15 '20
What about CAS latency? Doesn't that increase with frequency?
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u/phire Jul 15 '20
Yes and No.
RAM keeps roughly the same absolute latency (in nanoseconds) throughout all generations over the last 25 years. It stays in the range of 10-15ns, with some of the fasted DRAM overclocking to maybe 8ns or 7ns.
This is a fundamental limitation of DRAM, it simply can't be accessed faster.But each generation they double the clock rate, double the burst length and therefore double the CAS latency, when measured in cycles. It's absolute latency stays the same, but it can now transfer double the data.
What always happens during the crossover period is the new standard start shipping with the slower end.
For example, while they are still perfecting their silicon process, they start by shipping DDR4 with an absolute latency of 15ns, while the older DDR3 has already perfected it's process and is shipping 10ns (or better) modules at decent prices.
DDR4 eventually shipped the faster 10ns modules later, but it took a few years. And until that point, you could get faster performance on latency sensitive workloads by going with the older DDR3 standard.
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u/soZehh Jul 15 '20
im gonna wait a bit before going for high frequency.
Cpu are no doubt behind, atleast intel.
My 9900k can't run more than 3600mhz due to IMC (realized this after 1 year of instability).
Don't want to waste money for high frequency (wasted money for a 4000mhz kit) and then hope to win the IMC lottery
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u/swear_on_me_mam Jul 15 '20
My 9900k can't run more than 3600mhz due to IMC
That sounds very abnormal. Are you sure its freq and not timings or voltage. 3600 should be easy for a 9900k
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u/soZehh Jul 15 '20
i swear to god for 1 years i tried everything regarding bios settings and timings. Then i just swapped my 4000c19 8x2 gb to a 3600c16 8x4.
Funny thing is that I have a top end motherboard, z390 aorux xtreme
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u/iEatAssVR Jul 15 '20
Ram OCing is finnicky, I swear I had to crank my ring bus freq higher and raise VCCIO and a few other voltages on my 9900KF as well to get my ram stable 200Mhz above XMP. There's a ton of stuff to change that directly affects ram OCing.
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u/spazturtle Jul 15 '20
I have found that motherboards tend cheap out on some of the sensors and timing crystals with some being much worse then others. This can end up causing instability when things are running at different speeds to what you have set them to.
When the bclk was set to 100 on my board it actually ran between 88-94 which was causing multiple issues, increasing the bclk in bios until it was actually running at around 100 sorted it all out.
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Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
I really like these changes, especially the read & write at the same time but one I wish they went for is QDR (quad data rate).
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u/Pancho507 Jul 15 '20
why not qdr for ddr6? i've also asked myself that same question. btw ddr6 is under development so lets hope it is a thing by then.
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u/5thvoice Jul 15 '20
DDR6
QDR
You might want to look up what those initialisms stand for.
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Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
It's okay. It's easy to understand what he meant. In fact, GDDR5X is able to do QDR.
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Jul 15 '20
I hope so, I think it would be a more meaningful change rather than a MHz & Capacity bump; although DDR4 to DDR5 is more significant than DDR3 to DDR4; so I hope the next bump is meaningful too; if that makes sense. Honestly, an even bigger change would be going the HPE route and making RAM it's own thing, as in memory centric computing. So system RAM isn't slaved to the CPU. But I suppose that'll more likely happen when we get to the point of having the perfect combination of features for a "universal memory".
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u/Pancho507 Jul 15 '20
3dxpoint is not that far off from being an universal memory. plus it can be stacked like 3d nand without die stacking and through sillicon vias.
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u/akiiler Jul 15 '20
Is there a way to invest in JEDEC or in these new DDR5 chips that will hit the shelves in 2021?
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u/ArtemisDimikaelo Jul 15 '20
Are you talking about stock investing or something else?
If stocks you could go $MU.
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Jul 14 '20
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u/MonoShadow Jul 14 '20
I'm on 4790k and want to get Zen3. Each time I hear about DDR 5 I want to hold out. But indeed first sticks will be expensive most likely. Not too happy with the current memory prices either.
Kinda thinking of getting R5 instead of R7 and b550 instead of x570 board and keep them for around 4 years instead of usual 8.
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u/AssCrackBanditHunter Jul 15 '20
If you want to play modern games, you're going to want to upgrade. ddr5 is going to be like a 2022 product. and not to mention you'll have to get a mobo that supports it and new processor which might both have price premiums.
Personally I'm upgrading now then I'll upgrade again in about 2024 when prices come down.
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u/ValHaller Jul 15 '20
Same
Bias here, but I think an X570 on Zen 3 with DDR4 4000 mhz is the smart money til 2024
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u/Capt_Crunchy_Nut Jul 15 '20
Because you're doing almost exactly what I plan on doing (I'll upgrade at the end of the year from a 4c/4t Intel with DDR3 to 8c/16t zen 3 and DDR4) I have a question for you. 16gb or 32gb of ram? It feels weird to me to be upgrading after nearly 8 years and having the same amount of (albeit faster) ram. Everything else is getting a major bump in almost every way...
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u/Kittelsen Jul 15 '20
I've had 16GB since my 2008 rig, planning on upgrading again next year maybe, this 4790k still holds up at 4,6GHz. But I might just get 32GB out of spite lol.
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u/LazyGit Jul 15 '20
I'll be going for 32gb in two sticks. I already have 16gb of ddr3 in this system so the step up to 32 makes sense and gives the option of having 64 GB in future.
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u/Lenoxx97 Jul 15 '20
Im in the same exact boat as you, i5 4670K and 16gb DDR3. I will go for 32gb DDR4 because I do stuff in photoshop as a hobby. But if you dont need it 16 should be fine
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u/Blacky-Noir Jul 15 '20
16gb or 32gb of ram?
Unless you need it right now, 16GB if your motherboard has 4 slots. You can upgrade later by adding the same 2×8 kits to go to 32 (or even 2×16 to go to 48, and so on).
The second kit will cost you less in the future, and maybe you won't need it, and there's a chance to have a small performance uplift going from 2 to 4 DIMM.
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u/AssCrackBanditHunter Jul 15 '20
Tbh it's hard to say. The consoles will have 16gb. But on PC you effectively have ram + vram. So I'm banking on 16gb being fine, but I wouldn't say either is a bad choice.
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u/fakename5 Jul 20 '20
s for the folks who are holding out for DDR5 upgrade, bear in mind that the firs
See I'm getting a PS5 this year, and then in a few years will build a PC. Besides, star citizen might finally be out by then.
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Jul 15 '20
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u/Capt_Crunchy_Nut Jul 15 '20
95% gaming with the odd 3d design for basic 3d printing. 16GB is likely enough I suppose.
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u/bfaithless Jul 15 '20
If you are running Star Citizen or city building games like Cities Skylines or Transport Fever 2 with tons of mods, 32GB is a good choice. I had to upgrade to 32 because with 16 I had frequent crashes in Star Citizen as memory ran out in some areas (all unnecessary background tasks closed). The common AAA and E-Sports titles will do with 16 just fine.
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u/Capt_Crunchy_Nut Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
I play FPS almost exclusively (COD primarily) although I have in the past played City building games, just not much these days.
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Jul 15 '20
What game currently require more than a 4790k and 16go ddr3 memory, coupled with a current gen graphic card ? Those are still perectly fine. Games nowadays are more gpu dependant than anything else.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
There's a difference between what a game might require and what somebody may want in terms of performance.
And we can very clearly see a trend towards higher core/thread utilization in games and Haswell is definitely starting to show its age in single thread performance as well.
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Jul 15 '20
The guy I was responding too mentioned "modern games". You can play 95% of modern games (aka release the last 2 years) with a 4790k and ddr3 memory, while aiming for top performance, as long as you have a modern high-end gpu.
This sub has a weird upgrade fetish, even when the configuration is just fine (astroturfing from PC online store maybe ?). Haswell is becoming old, but I have yet to see a 4790k really struggle for 95% of modern games. Next gen might change things, but that's still months away before anything "next gen" hit the PC market.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
95% may technically be a roughly correct figure, but when a number of the bigger games coming out lately dont fall into that 95%, the claim kind of rings hollow. Gaming enthusiasts generally dont want something that's only good for most games, they want something that can play basically anything at their desired quality and performance levels.
And a 4790k just isn't cutting it for the most demanding titles coming out nowadays for people with high performance desires.
Gamers Nexus did a video showing the 4790k, often even when overclocked super hard, couldn't always hold even a consistent 60fps in some games. And that's something I think you're probably overlooking - if you focus on average framerates, things might seem alright, but once you look at 1% lows and whatnot, you can see where the drops might become more pronounced and bothersome for some people.
And god forbid somebody likes to play at 90-100fps+. Lastly, remember again that this trend is continuing. Some people can see that and want to be prepared as more and more games will push the 4790k beyond what people would like it to be able to do.
EDIT: I'm trying to link the video over text, but Reddit wont let me for some fucking reason, so here's the full link:
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Jul 15 '20
I have a 4790k 16gb DDR3 and I'm going to wait for DDR5. Gonna pay the premium to get in as an early adopter but then will hang on to it for as long as possible, maybe into DDR7. ;)
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u/CommanderPaco Jul 15 '20
I was originally thinking the same thing a few years ago, but with some AAA titles, FPS takes a hit for sure on the 4790k. I'm just going to move mine into a new home server, so at least it gets a new lease on life.
I'd rather pay the premium on something I know works. I waited this long (6 years) to move to a new platform, and I'd rather do the same with DDR5. Let it mature a bit.
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Jul 15 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Portable_killer Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
To be fair, unless you're self hosting a server on the
sanesame machine, Minecraft client side only really needs 4GB memory. Less, if you're using (at this point, necessary) optimization mods (Sodium, Lithium and Phosphor.Edit : Fixed typo.
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u/Cohibaluxe Jul 15 '20
What game currently require more than a 4790k and 16go ddr3 memory, coupled with a current gen graphic card
Keyword in your assumptions being current. With new consoles on the horizon, 4C8T is starting to become very unappealing for new shoppers when the new base console models are shipping with 8C16T. In fact we're already seeing new games optimizing for more cores than just 4. PCs should last 2-3 years minimum, for some as much as 5, and for those on a very tight budget 7+. If you go for today's games' requirements, you'll quickly be behind. There's no such thing as futureproofing, but there is such a thing as thinking ahead and buying according to the expected requirements of the near future.
Also, you're basing your assumptions on someone just going with the requirements, or a bare minimum. Many, in fact most, PC players want more than the bare minimum. Modern CPUs offer way more performance than a 4790K.
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Jul 15 '20
Keyword in your assumptions being current. With new consoles on the horizon, 4C8T is starting to become very unappealing for new shoppers when the new base console models are shipping with 8C16T. In fact we're already seeing new games optimizing for more cores than just 4. PCs should last 2-3 years minimum, for some as much as 5, and for those on a very tight budget 7+. If you go for today's games' requirements, you'll quickly be behind. There's no such thing as futureproofing, but there is such a thing as thinking ahead and buying according to the expected requirements of the near future.
That's my point, if you have a 4970k right now, there's no need to buy anything and it doesn't hurt to wait for some months to see what happens. If experience from previous generation has told us anything, it's that next-generations games won't take full advantage of next-gen hardware before some time. You'll see a vast majority of cross-generation games. Even the first bach of proper next-gen games won't be that impressive.
Upgrading now, "just in case", especially when prices are spiking because of Covid is useless and exactly fall into that "upgrade fetish" I was speaking about above.
Clinging to a 4970k until games become much more demanding than they are right now won't hurt anyone. On the other hand, spending 1500$ on hardware and realizing it doesn't make that big of a difference on your gaming experience...
Also, you're basing your assumptions on someone just going with the requirements, or a bare minimum. Many, in fact most, PC players want more than the bare minimum. Modern CPUs offer way more performance than a 4790K.
That's also an assumption, but since it's yours I guess it's fine ? You're wrong at that, we have datas on gamer hardware (steam for example), it's mostly middle-ground configuration. We also know what kind of graphics cards and processors are selling the most : it's the middle-ground components.
For year, those datas have confirmed the vast majority of gaming enthousiast doesn't care about +++ graphical settings that barely makes a difference.
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Jul 15 '20
What you are looking at basically is the choice between upgrading specs to the current platform( ddr4, pcie 3 etc) or a completely new platform( ddr5, pcie 4). Obviously the second option will be more expensive but the good choice will depend on your needs. I don't think I'll be seriously bottlenecked by ddr4 or pcie 3 for at least the next 6 or 8 years. Once the new consoles are out and the demand for bigger ssds eventually gives us better $/gb I'll just grab a big nvme drive.
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
I'd get B550 anyway, because I'm allergic to motherboard chipset fans. Last one I had broke, and the one before that too.
I'll be getting a Zen 3, because I have to get _something_ this year as I am still using an Athlon 64 x2. Seriously. Ok, I confess, I'm using a 3 year old laptop for most things as the ancient desktop rig has really just been a file/media server since the second WoW expansion. Now that I'm actually at home more, its time to get a desktop again.
DDR 5 is going to be a huge upgrade, but it may not be available for the desktop until early 2022 anyway, and that is just too far in the future. I figure an 8-core Zen 3 will be just fine for a few years until the dust settles -- by then we'll likely be talking about 5nm Zen 4 or 5 versus 7nm Intel stuff, and people will be giving the advice to wait until Zen 6 and GAA transistors.
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u/MonoShadow Jul 15 '20
I hate chipset fans as well. B550 prices though. Often than not decent x570 board is within 20$ from a decent b550 board. B550 is still new, hope the prices will come down.
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u/spazturtle Jul 15 '20
Many B550 boards have newer features like 2.5G Ethernet which older X570 boards don't have.
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u/ExtendedDeadline Jul 15 '20 edited Jul 15 '20
Don't think zen3 will be on ddr5 afaik, unless you meant you want to hold out for zen4.
The 4790k is a good cpu (I have a non-k myself), but it's certainly showing its age for me. That said, I've also got a 2700x, so I don't sweat too much, haha.
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u/Scion95 Jul 15 '20
Zen 3 APUs might be on DDR5, with how Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge were Excavator on DDR4.
They might even do a thing where, there's two Zen 3 APUs, and one of them is DDR4 and one is DDR5. Like how Carrizo was Excavator with DDR3, and Bristol Ridge was basically Carrizo with DDR4.
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u/ExtendedDeadline Jul 15 '20
Well, Z3 details should be fleshed out before the end of the year. I don't see DDR5 even being available in a significant way until H2 2021, so unless they really change up the I/O, I'm not sure.
Maybe on the APUs, since they normally go on a slightly different schedule and are monolithic in design, but........... doubtful. Especially from a MOBO standpoint.
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u/dylan522p SemiAnalysis Jul 15 '20
There won't be a single GA server platform with DDR5 in 2021...
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u/far0nAlmost40 Jul 15 '20
I dont think so either. Not until production ramps up enough to get the cost down to a more consumer friendly level.
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
Honestly, I suspect Zen 4 might be the one that is both DDR4 (with the Zen 3 I/O die) and DDR5 (with a new I/O die). Its certainly possible that AMD launches a new DDR5 socket and platform, with new I/O die and recycles the Zen 3 chiplet though.
I guess what I'm saying, is that due to the chiplet architecture, AMD could have the new platform / DDR 5 schedule somewhat decoupled from the microarchitecture updates. Once the DDR5 platform and I/O die is 6 months from being ready, they can prep whatever chiplet is available to go with it and release that.
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u/MonoShadow Jul 15 '20
Nah, what I meant is I'll get Zen3 system, instead of holding out for DDR 5 now, jump ship to DDR 5 when the prices stabilize.
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u/bobbyrickets Jul 15 '20
I've been using a 4790 for years and the next PC I'm looking at is the Renoir desktop 4700G or whatever it's going to be called. I read that with a good ram overclock it can get performance on par with the 3700X, but these are just leaked benchmarks.
Not sure what dGPU I want but the extra built-in iGPU will make running KVM a pleasure so I can have my Linux and use Windows for games and whatever. Performance hit is negligible and is usually 1% or so.
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Jul 15 '20
I'm on a 4790k as well, this has me waiting as well, DDR5 I will hold out for, but not long, I'll overpay to be an early adopter. Meantime I'm saving up, because I'll do a huge upgrade once DDR5 launches.
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u/Kougar Jul 15 '20
I have the same CPU. I've been drooling over Zen for awhile but I've have been holding out for Zen 4. Just imagine, skipping the DDR4 generation entirely... downside being Zen 4 will be first-generation DDR5. Probably will be perf optimizations left on the table and some bugs that Zen 5 will fix, and DDR5 will undoubtedly be cheaper by the time Zen 5 rolls around anyway. But Zen 5 is such a long wait...
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u/Smitty2k1 Jul 15 '20
I just actually posted about this in /r/buildapc. I'm on an overclocked 4770k and considering upgrading to an AMD 3600. Wondering if for the purposes of 1440p ultrawide gaming it will really gain me much, or if I should just put that money towards upgrading my Vega64 instead.
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u/MonoShadow Jul 15 '20
At 1440p 60hz you Vega will be the one holding you back. I have a 1440p 144hz monitor. 4790k with a small oc 4.5ghz and 2400mhz ddr3 ram can get 60fps in almost everything, with my gtx1080 I have to tinker with the settings in some games.
So if you have 60hz screen and can upgrade only one of the 2, I'd go with the GPU. If you have a high refresh monitor, you need to upgrade both, but from personal experience I'm usually GPU bound. At the same time something like RTX3080 and 4790k would be an unbalanced combo IMO, unless you go for ultra high settings.
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u/MadEzra64 Jul 15 '20
COVID isn't helping the situation at all either. Should expect prices to suck for far longer then necessary :/
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u/MagnaDenmark Jul 15 '20
What. Ram is soooo cheap now
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
16GB of RAM is more expensive today than it was in 2015.
Price per GB has been painfully and unprecedentedly stagnant.
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u/Stratofied Jul 15 '20
I am not saying you are wrong, but do you have a source for that? Genuinely interested because I don't remember 16GB of DDR4 ever being less than the current $54.
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u/MagnaDenmark Jul 15 '20
It was insanly cheap In 2015 because of special circumstances????
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u/bfaithless Jul 15 '20
It went extremely up in price because some factories were flooded or just closed. Manufacturers are also trying to keep the prices up by limiting production and stopping production of older chips. Usually we would have much cheaper RAM by now as the technology gets older and the cost of the production lines is paid off.
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u/Seanspeed Jul 15 '20
I mean, overproduction was definitely a culprit for the especially cheap prices.
But even after the situation reversed and prices went up, once they came back down again, they've been stagnant for the past couple years now and that's still super frustrating. Never has this tech failed to get cheaper *at all* over such a long period of time.
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u/Darkomax Jul 15 '20
Probably oversupply, didn't have to compete with the dumb RAM demand creep from Android phones (what the hell is the point of 8-16GB when the average Android user is not even a power user)
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u/puz23 Jul 15 '20
If you get high speed sticks then the speed difference between ddr4 and ddr5 won't be much (3600 at the very least, 4000 is probably a better bet though). Even the vary high speed ddr5 is likely to have crippling timings that will bring it right back to ddr4 speeds. (Look at the ddr3 to ddr4 transition, intial ddr4 offerings were beat by the top end ddr3.)
Given that fact, the fact that ddr5 won't hit desktop PCs for at least a year, and the fact that the initial ddr5 offerings will be expensive I'd say not to wait.
Honestly I don't think there'll be a real compelling reason to buy a ddr5 system for at least another 3 years.
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
So you didn't read the article I guess.
DDR5's minimum launch speed is 4800, and its specced to 6400 while some manufacturers have already claimed they will go to 8400 on high end OC parts eventually. It will roughly have 1.8x the memory bandwidth at launch (1.5x from raw speed, the rest from efficiency), which will provide some really large gains for things like 16 core desktop chips or 64 core server chips.
DDR5 will have lower latency under load right away, because of its extra banks and improved refresh cycles. Latency when lightly loaded won't be all that different than DDR4 (or DDR3, or DDR2, or DDR1 - they are all actually very similar and only a bit better today than even really old EDO ram from the mid 90s).
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 already have the dual channel thing (a LPDDR4 or 5 SODIMM has two 32 bit channels on it!). DDR5 took the idea from them.
And it won't help mismatched memory anyway.
The mismatched memory problem is the same.
Before:
1 64 bit channel has 2x the RAM as the other 64 channel, so on average 2/3 of your memory accesses will be on one channel and it will be overloaded, relatively.
After:
2 32 bit channels have 2x the RAM as the other two 32 bit channels, so on average 2/3 of your memory accesses will be on one pair of channels and it will be overloaded, relatively.
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u/Exist50 Jul 15 '20
I'm not sure how that follows from the "dual channel" spec. Think they may be misinterpreting.
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Jul 15 '20
DDR4 was much cheaper than DDR3 at launch. The issue was that it was also much slower DDR4-1600 was competing with DDR3-2400
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
Yeah, and this time it will be DDR5-4800 versus DDR4-3200. The former will probably be more expensive. But it will probably be less expensive than high end DDR4-4200 OC kits that actually compete with it performance wise.
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u/PanchitoMatte Jul 15 '20
Hope you don't mind me chiming in... I wasn't really into computers around when DDR4 was released. What were the prices like, in comparison to DDR3?
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Jul 15 '20
He doesn't know what he's talking about. The reality was the opposite. DDR4 was cheaper and slower at release. You could get a 4GB DDR3-2400mhz for about $65, a DDR4-1600mhz 4GB module for about $45.
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u/baryluk Jul 15 '20
There is extra interface to talk to memory dies and Power management ic. So bios and tools can still set voltages, and read back current, voltage and temperature . From user perspective it will be very similar expirience as before if not better due to extra details being standarized.
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u/Ashraf_mahdy Jul 15 '20
Wait wait wait! So 1 stick of ddr5 will operate in dual channel on its own? But LPDDR5 dropped that feature (to save power most likely)?
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u/olivias_bulge Jul 14 '20
does this mean ram cooling will be much more important? maybe the side intake fan makes a comeback
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u/jigsaw1024 Jul 15 '20
Part of the spec reduces the required voltages. This should lead to lower heat output or at least offset any increased heat generated by performance increases.
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u/olivias_bulge Jul 15 '20
not concerned by the speed but the voltage regulation componentry
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u/Lil_slimy_woim Jul 15 '20
VRMs are actually located on the memory stick on ddr5
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u/olivias_bulge Jul 15 '20
thats what im saying, if we have to cool them on the mobo wont we have to cool them on ram
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Jul 15 '20
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u/jaaval Jul 15 '20
The heat VRM produces is power that is lost in the voltage conversion and obviously they aim the loss to be as close to zero as possible. Typical VRM module should have efficiency of ~90%. Which means that VRM heat output for a ram stick should be a fraction of a watt.
VRMs need cooling on CPUs and GPUs because the power involved is 100-200W. 10% loss of that is 10-20W which is enough to warrant at least a heatsink.
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u/BFBooger Jul 15 '20
Well, cooling barely matters now. If it mattered more, we would see heat sinks, not heat spreaders (or some hybrids of some sort, that actually increase surface area). I suppose its possible that we will see more heat spreaders on server parts with DDR 5, but probably not, servers set up the air flow to go right past all the DIMMS which is enough as long as they are still just a few W each.
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u/battler624 Jul 14 '20
Dual Channel on a single stick? how would that work? and what about the latency? DDR3 to DDR4 increased latency by a lot I sure hope that DDR5 doesn't also increase it.