Summary and conclusion
But what do we learn from all this? Well, as is so often the case, it depends on the particular application or use case. It actually goes without saying that applications with high data throughput, such as Geekbench 3, benefit the most from the higher speeds of DDR5. On the other hand, especially latency-sensitive applications like SuperPi 32M suffer for it, where DDR4 is still significantly faster. In most real-world compute use cases, which LinpackXtreme closely resembles, the tradeoff between latency and bandwidth matters, with the former often being slightly preferred.
The leap from DDR4 to DDR5 therefore brings added value in most cases, even if it is often only relatively small. This is also true for gaming, where the differences in the two measured titles only amount to a few FPS, but are reproducible and measurable. Now it is fair to say that DDR5 modules and motherboards are still in their infancy and soon even higher clock rates and lower latencies will be possible. Already today, Hynix DDR5 modules with DDR5-6500 CL28 1T can be operated stably on a few mainboards, with a measured latency in AIDA64 of less than 50 ns.
Now there is still the question of the ideal ranks. And yes, with both RAM generations on the new Alder Lake platform, dual-rank operation still brings a measurable increase. However, this is somewhat lower than in previous Intel generations, mainly due to the now larger L3 cache and the already more efficient two memory controllers. Since more ranks are always accompanied by a higher load for the memory controller(s) and thus often lower clock rates, the net performance maximum of single and dual rank should probably be pretty identical with this generation. However, as always with Dual-Rank, you also get twice the capacity of working memory. Based on the same chip density, which is 16 Gbit for all manufacturers at the start of DDR5, 64 GB can thus already be equipped. With dual-rank modules even 128 GB are possible on a “consumer” mainboard.
Today’s test, however, showed that Alder Lake CPUs don’t necessarily need DDR5 to set performance records. On the contrary, there are even use cases where DDR4 with its lower latency is still faster. And even if you lose a few FPS in gaming, this is often out of proportion to the acquisition costs of DDR5 and a matching motherboard. So, if you still have a good DDR4 kit, you can confidently continue to use it with Alder Lake, and solid mid-range motherboards like the MSI Pro Z690-A are already available for around 200 Euros – actually in stock. So especially for budget-conscious Alder Lake upgraders, DDR4 is a sensible alternative to the new DDR5 standard. In addition, the even cheaper B and H chipset boards are also just around the corner and, if you can believe the leaks, these also mainly rely on DDR4.
19 Antworten
Kommentar
Lade neue Kommentare
Mitglied
Veteran
Urgestein
Veteran
1
Veteran
Veteran
Neuling
Urgestein
Urgestein
Neuling
Veteran
Neuling
Mitglied
Urgestein
Veteran
Mitglied
Veteran
Neuling
Alle Kommentare lesen unter igor´sLAB Community →