What is DDR5 RAM?

DDR5 RAM is now a reality, with Intel’s 600 series being the first computer processor to use this memory. We’ll review its features, improvements over DDR4, and what’s new with it.

Coming with modules starting at 4,800 MHz, DDR5 marks a new era in individual computers (desktops and laptops). Additionally, we will see an increase in overall memory size, with the 32GB-per-card configuration becoming more common. We will review the options that AMD and Intel offer us on both laptops and desktops.

What is DDR5 RAM?

Its main improvements are greater density per module, higher bandwidth and lower power consumption. DDR5 can increase the total RAM by 4x per platform: previously limited to 128GB, now we can reach 512GB in 4 slots. On high-end platforms such as Intel Xeon or AMD Threadripper, we can reach 1 TB of RAM by taking advantage of 8 slots. At a local level that would be ridiculous, but at a professional level it’s great news, especially for presenters.

DDR4 offers up to 32GB per module, while DDR5 can go up to 64GB per module. This is thanks to DDR5 supporting stacking of dies, reaching 8 dies in the same module. In the future, we may see DDR5 modules coming with 2TB, which is overkill. We may see 128GB per module for the generic market, but that will likely be around 2024-2025. Since its launch in 2021, the first modules have come with 16 GB and a frequency of 4,800 MHz. Speaking of frequency, we should look at JEDEC and its features. DDR4 ended at DDR4-3200 while DDR5 started at DDR5-3200.

Another innovation is that there are no more pins than DDR4: they come with 288 pins, but the pinouts are different. It also entails changing the position of the notch to prevent us from plugging DDR5 into DDR4 slots or vice versa. However, ASUS has worked on a DDR4 to DDR5 adapter for DDR4 modules. The aim is that the user who wants to buy an ASUS motherboard with DDR5 can temporarily reuse their old modules. This is due to the high starting price of DDR5, which pushes beginners to continue using DDR4.

If we look at the memory channels, DDR4 came with the 64-bit channel. DDR5 comes with 2 independent 32-bit channels. As the Brust width is doubled from BL8 to BL16, it increases efficiency and reduces latency when accessing data. DDR5 works with a voltage of 1.1V, while DDR4 uses a minimum voltage of 1.2V.

Intel and AMD support

Intel was the first platform to offer desktop DDR5 RAM support via the LGA1700 socket. AMD has introduced the Ryzen 6000 for laptops that are only compatible with DDR5 or LPDDR5.

Although Intel offers the opportunity to purchase a 600 series motherboard with DDR4, it offers an alternative in DDR5. However, AM5 will be a DDR5-only socket that will be released in late 2022 alongside the Ryzen 7000 with Zen 4 architecture.

Intel XMP 3.0

Intel is taking advantage over DDR5 support by introducing new XMP profiles that are ideal for those looking to overclock their RAM. The novelty is that we now have 5 XMP profiles that we can change and save 2 fully customized XMP profiles.

The first change is SPD or Serial Asset Detection, meaning we will have 2 XMP profiles that can be updated, will be able to use one in case the other gets corrupted. The second is the space increase in XMP 3.0, which provides up to 384 bytes of memory. This way, profiles like SPD can be selected from the BIOS since we’ve seen 102 bytes in XMP 2.0 before.

To say that this is an innovation not only for DDR5, but also for DDR4, if we want to benefit from its features or improvements, we need to use modules certified with Intel XMP 3.0.

Intel also brought the possibility of overclocking RAM while Windows is on, without having to go to the BIOS for Dynamic Memory Boost. This means we can change the JEDEC profile along with the XMP 3.0 profiles to choose between energy savings or maximum performance on our RAM memories.

Game performance

We did see a slight increase in FPS in our benchmark, but it must be said that most of the blame is on the Intel Alder Lake-S processors. RAM memory can get an extra boost of up to 5 FPS, but other than that, nothing else should be expected.

The biggest reason Intel 12th Gen processors outperformed the Ryzen 5000 in our benchmark is due to the new architecture and 10 nm process (Intel 7). But AIDA64 is key to controlling RAM performance, and here we’ve seen how the i9-12900K or i5-12600K swept away their rivals.

The read and write speeds are obviously higher, but you already know what happens when we increase the frequency of the modules: the latency increases. And in that respect, AIDA64 revealed that DDR5’s latency is worse than DDR4’s, something to be expected.