DDR4 vs DDR5: a first idea on the gain

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The arrival of Alder Lake has accelerated the deployment schedule of DDR5. While Intel’s new CPU is capable of accepting both DDR4 and DDR5, the K versions currently on the market are mostly accompanied by DDR5 motherboards.

Colorful V-Color DDR5 However, it has been known from the beginning that DDR5 is still in its infancy and that it will be some time before we have kits that can really bring more. Very quickly, users have noted that the differences in performance with DDR4 kits are very small, while the bill is high for switching to the new ram. Tom’s Hardware wanted to find out the real difference between the two Ram technologies by comparing the DDR5 memory kits in its possession with DDR4. And indeed, it seems that to really see differences, you have to look really hard!

DDR5@6000 MHz vs DDR4@3200… +3% ?

This first result is exclusively for games. A DDR4 3200 MHz kit with CL22-22-52 latencies is thus opposed to the same platform in DDR5 6000 MHz with CL36-36-76 latencies. The average gain measured in this case is only 3%. This is obviously a big question when you are mainly focused on gaming. On the other hand, on productivity and creativity applications, the gains become a little more significant. Indeed, a “basic” DDR5 @4800Mhz kit is 17% faster than our famous DDR4 @3200 MHz kit used in games. If we go up a bit in frequency, the difference is still noticeable: we have a 13% gain in favor of a DDR5 @ 6400 MHz kit compared to a DDR4 @4000 MHz kit. We’ll have to wait until spring 2022 to start receiving sharper DDR5 kits. Gaming performance should then increase significantly as well as overclocking possibilities.