Asrock and MSI motherboards now support 256 GB of DDR5 memory

[Shawn Knight]

Bottom line: Two leading motherboard makers have announced support for memory capacities up to 256 GB. It's only a matter of time before competing board makers also expand their memory capacity support. Fortunately, there is no hurry for it to happen as most folks building a new system these days for general purpose use or gaming are likely to go with 32 GB of total memory capacity.

Asrock said its Intel 700 Series and AMD AM5 Series boards now support the higher capacity, made possible by populating each of the four DIMM slots (or 128 GB on boards with only two RAM slots) with Kingston Fury Renegade 64 GB modules. The company shared screenshots from an AMD system (X670E Taichi board) as well as an Intel machine (Z790 Nova WiFi) running at max memory capacity.

MSI also announced support for 256 GB of RAM on four-slot motherboards (or 128 GB on two-slot boards). MSI shared proof of the same Kingston kit running on AMD and Intel platforms but their screenshot is too small to make out many details.

Both board manufacturers utilized Kingston Fury Renegade 64 GB modules, which are built on Micron's 1-beta technology. The modules are rated for 36-38-38 latency at 1.350v.

Supporting Kingston's 64 GB modules is one thing, but finding them online is a whole different challenge. I was only able to track down 32 GB modules – perhaps Kingston hasn't released its 64 GB modules to the general public yet, and Asrock / MSI are using pre-production parts for testing?

Most would agree that 32 GB is a comfortable amount of memory for a new build, but I personally tend to splurge in this area. I am in the process of putting together a new PC for the first time in 12 years and opted for a 48 GB DDR5 kit (24 GB x 2). The extra capacity should help to future-proof the system a bit, especially considering the board only has two memory slots.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101226-asrock-msi-boards-now-support-256-gb-ddr5.html

 

[yRaz]

Too bad it doesn't support the full speed when using 4 slots. Also kind of mad it doesn't support ECC. I know DDR5 is sudo ECC but it isn't enough. If I have an application that is using 256GB of memory it would be nice to use it at speed with ECC enabled without paying a $2000+ premium for threadripper.

I've heard rumors of 16core chiplets for AMDs next gen chips which would mean 32 core AM5 systems. Without proper memory support, what's the point? The IDEA is cool but in practice it's more trouble than the money you would save. Frankly, I'd like to see AM6 with upto 4 channels, ECC and more PCI-e lanes. Lots of PCI-e lanes 10 years ago but now EVERYTHING uses the PCI-e BUS. Not having ECC support on this much memory is pointless. Having that 16+ cores with 256GB of memory and 28 PCI lanes is pointless. Heck, these days, 28 Lanes is barely enough for a graphics card, wifi/network card and 2 NVME drives.

AM6 should be a lot closer to base model threadripper. We've been cheering AMD on as the underdog for years now but they're really starting to take advantage of the communities good will. I have a feeling that if Intel would support more PCI-e lanes and ECC memory on a "consumer" platform then many people would jump ship. People flocked to the 1800X when it came out despite being significantly slower just because it offered more for the money. If Intel is going to be the underdog in performance from now on they need to start offering better prices and more features for their platform. Also, it would be nice if they made a chip without E-cores. E-cores are great on budget and midranged chips but pretty pointless on their high-end platform.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I just recently made the upgrade to 128 GB, but my datasets keep growing, so it's only a matter of time. Glad that I won't have to shell out for the full workstation setup for the foreseeable future.

 

[brunocasarini]

"48 GB DDR5 kit (24 GB x 2)"

I have never seen or even heard of a 24GB RAM module.

 

[toooooot]

I could open all browsers with 100 tabs each with this baby. And I probably will.

 

[daffy duck]

"48 GB DDR5 kit (24 GB x 2)"

I have never seen or even heard of a 24GB RAM module.

Really! They've been available for about 6 months along with 48GB modules. There have literally been dozens of articles on them.

 

[brunocasarini]

Really! They've been available for about 6 months along with 48GB modules. There have literally been dozens of articles on them.

Man, I found those articles yesterday. They came and went and I never saw them.

 

[thewelshbrummie]

We've been cheering AMD on as the underdog for years now but they're really starting to take advantage of the communities good will.

Yet people complain about Intel having take advantage when they had the upper hand between 2006-2016. Of course AMD will want to profit while they're ahead - good will is irrelevant to shareholders.

I have a feeling that if Intel would support more PCI-e lanes and ECC memory on a "consumer" platform then many people would jump ship. People flocked to the 1800X when it came out despite being significantly slower just because it offered more for the money. If Intel is going to be the underdog in performance from now on they need to start offering better prices and more features for their platform. Also, it would be nice if they made a chip without E-cores. E-cores are great on budget and midranged chips but pretty pointless on their high-end platform.

tbh the 1800X wasn't where the value was - and it still really took Zen+ before Ryzen made sense as an obvious upgrade path from Sandy Bridge (I.e. in the region of a 50% performance uplift, especially when Windows 10 had native support on both platforms).

e-cores still make a difference - if the 14700K gets a ~10% performance uplift vs the 13700K from just adding 4 e-cores to an already core loaded CPU, Intel aren't just going to offer an e-coreless CPU at the high end when coolers that can manage it exist (even if they're expensive). I am a little surprised that they haven't added them to the i3 range as a 4P4E CPU vs a Ryzen 5600 6 core CPU would be an interesting comparison.