DDR5 vs. DDR4 Benchmarks on Intel i9-12900K (Alder Lake Memory Comparison)
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Date: 2021-11-12
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Comments and reviews: 10
TechyBen
I think it's both fair and unfair to compare to AMDs DDR4 platform. It's fare to compare AMD as an older technology, but not fair as a current technology. People going wow, I'm getting Intel now, AMD is slow is forgetting AMD and Intel currently have different release cycles. AMDs and Intel's older chips are slow, and their newer chips are/will be faster. Will AMDs newer chips next year be faster than 12th gen Intel? Time will tell. So saying Intel is the fastest currently is great, saying Intel is faster than AMD is factually wrong (it's far to nuanced to make general statements).
(Basically, we can say a motorbike is faster than a car, but a motorbike is not a faster car , it's a motorbike. :P Or if I put bigger wheels on my cr, it's not the fastest engine , it's the entire car setup that makes it faster. Thankfully, Intel are faster as well as DDR5 having some prospects for improved performance. But on release, it was not clear how much performance uplift was from the CPU and how much from the RAM.
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I think it's both fair and unfair to compare to AMDs DDR4 platform. It's fare to compare AMD as an older technology, but not fair as a current technology. People going wow, I'm getting Intel now, AMD is slow is forgetting AMD and Intel currently have different release cycles. AMDs and Intel's older chips are slow, and their newer chips are/will be faster. Will AMDs newer chips next year be faster than 12th gen Intel? Time will tell. So saying Intel is the fastest currently is great, saying Intel is faster than AMD is factually wrong (it's far to nuanced to make general statements).
(Basically, we can say a motorbike is faster than a car, but a motorbike is not a faster car , it's a motorbike. :P Or if I put bigger wheels on my cr, it's not the fastest engine , it's the entire car setup that makes it faster. Thankfully, Intel are faster as well as DDR5 having some prospects for improved performance. But on release, it was not clear how much performance uplift was from the CPU and how much from the RAM.
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Todd
The problem I have is you compare the 12900 vs the 5950 and the 12700 vs the 5600XT. Well I priced out systems for the 12700 and 5600XT on Newegg for the same amount of memory (Intel using DDR5) and similar boards with the AMD using the stock cooler and Intel using what was available. The The Intel system cost almost exactly twice as much, especially when the 15 difference to make it a perfect doubling would have gone into a larger PSU or case with better cooling likely. So you are saying the 12700 is beating the 5600XT and costs almost the same... that is the BS I have problems with. It costs 2x as much. Yes going with DDR4 for the Intel system might level the playing field a bit as the memory and board will be much closer, but not the cooling or power demand. I would guess a DDR system for Intel would cost about 50% more still.
Also The bottom .1% or even 1% are the most important not the average on game benchmarks. I don't care if I have 200 FPS if the game stutters every time I get into combat.
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The problem I have is you compare the 12900 vs the 5950 and the 12700 vs the 5600XT. Well I priced out systems for the 12700 and 5600XT on Newegg for the same amount of memory (Intel using DDR5) and similar boards with the AMD using the stock cooler and Intel using what was available. The The Intel system cost almost exactly twice as much, especially when the 15 difference to make it a perfect doubling would have gone into a larger PSU or case with better cooling likely. So you are saying the 12700 is beating the 5600XT and costs almost the same... that is the BS I have problems with. It costs 2x as much. Yes going with DDR4 for the Intel system might level the playing field a bit as the memory and board will be much closer, but not the cooling or power demand. I would guess a DDR system for Intel would cost about 50% more still.
Also The bottom .1% or even 1% are the most important not the average on game benchmarks. I don't care if I have 200 FPS if the game stutters every time I get into combat.
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Dominik
I would have preferred a big fat disclaimer that the data is not representative of actual performance in most cases at the beginning of the video. Manually tuned B-Die in gear 1 vs not even the best DDR5 kit on the market not manually tuned in gear 2 doesn t even come close to being a fair comparison if you really wanna know which platform is capable of performing better overall. This methodology really only makes the testing valuable for the extreme cases where there is a big uplift from the additional bandwidth and maybe clock speed where timings don t matter.
Still thankful for the testing but I m much more looking forward for the future data once you get your hands on one of those 5600C36 D5 kits and got the hang of how to manually tune those. I don t know about elsewhere in the world but the pricing of B-Die D4 kits from G-Skill Trident Z vs the best Z5 variants are not that far apart here in Germany so it really is a fair comparison with maxed out 32GB kits.
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I would have preferred a big fat disclaimer that the data is not representative of actual performance in most cases at the beginning of the video. Manually tuned B-Die in gear 1 vs not even the best DDR5 kit on the market not manually tuned in gear 2 doesn t even come close to being a fair comparison if you really wanna know which platform is capable of performing better overall. This methodology really only makes the testing valuable for the extreme cases where there is a big uplift from the additional bandwidth and maybe clock speed where timings don t matter.
Still thankful for the testing but I m much more looking forward for the future data once you get your hands on one of those 5600C36 D5 kits and got the hang of how to manually tune those. I don t know about elsewhere in the world but the pricing of B-Die D4 kits from G-Skill Trident Z vs the best Z5 variants are not that far apart here in Germany so it really is a fair comparison with maxed out 32GB kits.
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Dennis
Intel differentiates their product tiers not only by CPU cores but also by L3 cache. A 12600K with its 20 MB of L3 cache might show greater differences DDR4 vs DDR5 compared to the 12900K with its 30MB of L3 cache used in this comparison. As more cache misses leads to more frequent RAM access we might see an effect in both directions!
You made a good point in DDR4 having way less latency. And I mean averall latency in nanoseconds ... cycles are irrelevant, just a means to configure the latency in memory controller. Back in the early 90s RAM was even specced in nanoseconds!
Is the shorter latency of DDR4 helping more than DDR5's throughput advantage in L3 cache constrained scenarios?
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Intel differentiates their product tiers not only by CPU cores but also by L3 cache. A 12600K with its 20 MB of L3 cache might show greater differences DDR4 vs DDR5 compared to the 12900K with its 30MB of L3 cache used in this comparison. As more cache misses leads to more frequent RAM access we might see an effect in both directions!
You made a good point in DDR4 having way less latency. And I mean averall latency in nanoseconds ... cycles are irrelevant, just a means to configure the latency in memory controller. Back in the early 90s RAM was even specced in nanoseconds!
Is the shorter latency of DDR4 helping more than DDR5's throughput advantage in L3 cache constrained scenarios?
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Zzzz
this is complicated sure you can get some great DDR4 the best I got is GSKILL TRIDENT Z ROYAL GOLD 16GB 3600MHz I forget what ius the CL 00-00-00-00 well I do know that CL that is on my dims is a lot better then DDR5 this is one that I am looking at G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR5 SDRAM DDR5 5200 Intel XMP 3.0 Desktop Memory Model F5-5200U4040A16GX2-RS5K the clock speed is hell of al lot faster then what I got however the CL 40-40-40-76 WOW to get better CL for DDR5 wait a year or two years see what goes on. DDR5 is not tested in the field. simple do what ever and put it on the market. and then let the customers do the field testing.
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this is complicated sure you can get some great DDR4 the best I got is GSKILL TRIDENT Z ROYAL GOLD 16GB 3600MHz I forget what ius the CL 00-00-00-00 well I do know that CL that is on my dims is a lot better then DDR5 this is one that I am looking at G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR5 SDRAM DDR5 5200 Intel XMP 3.0 Desktop Memory Model F5-5200U4040A16GX2-RS5K the clock speed is hell of al lot faster then what I got however the CL 40-40-40-76 WOW to get better CL for DDR5 wait a year or two years see what goes on. DDR5 is not tested in the field. simple do what ever and put it on the market. and then let the customers do the field testing.
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mongoose
The price:performance is exactly why I wanted to see the ddr4 vs ddr5 on this platform.
I agree that it s an advantage of 12th gen having the ability to use ddr5 vs ddr4 on amd, but that was also one of the biggest things with zen3 vs 10/11th gen intel, a price:performance
When a cpu (like the new i5) is being touted as x% ahead of a competitor for the same price those claims usually aren t considering the entire platform opportunity cost, but only the cpu itself
This was a really good comparison to do
It allows somebody to decide on a ddr4+12gen vs ddr4+zen3 vs ddr5+12gen and their pricing for each platform
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The price:performance is exactly why I wanted to see the ddr4 vs ddr5 on this platform.
I agree that it s an advantage of 12th gen having the ability to use ddr5 vs ddr4 on amd, but that was also one of the biggest things with zen3 vs 10/11th gen intel, a price:performance
When a cpu (like the new i5) is being touted as x% ahead of a competitor for the same price those claims usually aren t considering the entire platform opportunity cost, but only the cpu itself
This was a really good comparison to do
It allows somebody to decide on a ddr4+12gen vs ddr4+zen3 vs ddr5+12gen and their pricing for each platform
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itech
Well , i expected that DDR5 is not very much faster than DDR4 , it has way more bandwith , but you swap not several Gigabytes in Memory during playing a Game , this is done by the way faster GPU Memory GDDR6 = 192/256 Bit Bus instead of 64 and way higher Bandwith .
Where DDR5 can make a bigger difference is APUs i guess , in most cases is Latency more important than Bandwith in Games . If you want , you could check the IGPU Performance with DDR4 and DDR5 since the IGPU / APUs have no own Memory the higher Bandwith could make a Difference .
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Well , i expected that DDR5 is not very much faster than DDR4 , it has way more bandwith , but you swap not several Gigabytes in Memory during playing a Game , this is done by the way faster GPU Memory GDDR6 = 192/256 Bit Bus instead of 64 and way higher Bandwith .
Where DDR5 can make a bigger difference is APUs i guess , in most cases is Latency more important than Bandwith in Games . If you want , you could check the IGPU Performance with DDR4 and DDR5 since the IGPU / APUs have no own Memory the higher Bandwith could make a Difference .
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Koen
It feels like 2020 (and 2021 for that matter) all over again, with DDR5 being the new graphics card ...it's nowhere to be found...
Speaking of 2020, would it be possible to include MSFS2020 in some Alder Lake benchmarking? I'm building an Alder Lake system with playing this title in mind. It is both CPU and GPU intensive, so could make for some interesting results.
My GN coaster also just arrived! Perfect for keeping my coffee mug stable as I frantically scour the web for DDR5...
Thanks for all your content!
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It feels like 2020 (and 2021 for that matter) all over again, with DDR5 being the new graphics card ...it's nowhere to be found...
Speaking of 2020, would it be possible to include MSFS2020 in some Alder Lake benchmarking? I'm building an Alder Lake system with playing this title in mind. It is both CPU and GPU intensive, so could make for some interesting results.
My GN coaster also just arrived! Perfect for keeping my coffee mug stable as I frantically scour the web for DDR5...
Thanks for all your content!
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Pro
Steve, it's not a fair comparison. 4x8GB on a Daisy chain motherboard means that the other 2 sticks are performing slightly worse. It's not as good as 2x16GB Dual Rank.
Also, what if some games or applications like higher bandwidth? A good kit around 300 will be b-die, DR, 2x16GB, 3600 MT/s 14-15-15-35 even without tweaking. I am not sure that your 4x8GB SR (4 sticks so it's DR) can be tweaked as much as 2x16GB DR. And even 300 are cheaper than a decent DDR5 kit (which costs 400 or higher).
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Steve, it's not a fair comparison. 4x8GB on a Daisy chain motherboard means that the other 2 sticks are performing slightly worse. It's not as good as 2x16GB Dual Rank.
Also, what if some games or applications like higher bandwidth? A good kit around 300 will be b-die, DR, 2x16GB, 3600 MT/s 14-15-15-35 even without tweaking. I am not sure that your 4x8GB SR (4 sticks so it's DR) can be tweaked as much as 2x16GB DR. And even 300 are cheaper than a decent DDR5 kit (which costs 400 or higher).
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Zzzz
DDR4 will work better on GTA V there is GSKILL TRIDKENT Z ROYAL 16GB 3600 the CL 16-16-16-36 that is a lot better CL then DDR 5 CL 40-40-40-76 there is your problem. and INTEL 12th GEN CPU is a power hog long story short its not worth ging INTEL 12GEN now. wait a year or two. what is AMD going to do in JAN 2022? is there a launch on there next gen CPU line up? and then we are going to see a fight if that information I got is true or fake news I sticking with my i9 9900K
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DDR4 will work better on GTA V there is GSKILL TRIDKENT Z ROYAL 16GB 3600 the CL 16-16-16-36 that is a lot better CL then DDR 5 CL 40-40-40-76 there is your problem. and INTEL 12th GEN CPU is a power hog long story short its not worth ging INTEL 12GEN now. wait a year or two. what is AMD going to do in JAN 2022? is there a launch on there next gen CPU line up? and then we are going to see a fight if that information I got is true or fake news I sticking with my i9 9900K
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