We Bought the Cheapest DDR5 RAM Modules We Could Find, Are They Any Good?

[Avro Arrow]

Do you have any examples for me? I'd like to check a few of your sources so I can learn a bit more about this testing.

I would expect that he's technically correct in the way that one could say that many people do play those games with high-performance rigs but it depends on one's definition of "many". I personally believe that the overwhelming majority of people who play those games do so at a casual level as opposed to a competitive level.

I would also expect that most are youths and teenagers (especially Fortnite and PUBG players) for whom things like R7-3700X3D CPUs, RX 6800 XT cards and 120Hz displays aren't within their budgets (or the budgets of their parents either). That's why the Steam survey still shows a strong presence of the GTX 1060 and 60Hz displays. There's good, and then there's "good enough". Most of these "e-sports" titles don't require high-powered hardware to run very well.

I definitely agree with you, in my experience, I have never been able to tell the difference between "fast" RAM and "slow" RAM. I would expect that the biggest impacts to be had would be in productivity where massive amounts of computer resources are used for a single task, like Cinebench rendering for example.

 

[egrimm]

In my experience, I have never been able to tell the difference between "fast" RAM and "slow" RAM. I would expect that the biggest impacts to be had would be in productivity where massive amounts of computer resources are used for a single task, like Cinebench rendering for example.

And this is totally fine. I am not saying that everyone should be buying only high speed/low latency RAM kits. If you don't need the additional performance then take cheaper ones. It's the same as with CPU OC - not everyone needs it and it's fine if you don't squeeze out every last MHz possible

 

[Avro Arrow]

And this is totally fine. I am not saying that everyone should be buying only high speed/low latency RAM kits. If you don't need the additional performance then take cheaper ones. It's the same as with CPU OC - not everyone needs it and it's fine if you don't squeeze out every last MHz possible

I'd even go so far as to say it's better if you don't try to squeeze every last Hz out of a CPU because it uses far more power than it puts out and is dangerous to the components. I've always said that if you buy a CPU and have to OC it out of the box, you should have saved up for a faster CPU in the first place.

 

[Steve]

Sure
BTW Thank you for taking your time and reading and responding to the comments - I highly respect that!

1. Impact Of Ram Speed On Intel's Skylake Desktop Architecture - (https://kingfaris.co.uk/blog/intel-ram-oc-impact/15)
2. DDR4 speed scaling from 2133 to 4000 MT/s on 10900k (a bit old and in polish but plots are self-explanatory ) - https://www.purepc.pl/jaka-pamiec-ram-do-intel-core-i9-10900k-test-ddr4-2133-4000-mhz?page=0,27

TBF I was expecting it will be easier to find tests like the 2. but with newer platform (ADL or Zen3) but for some reason there are none (or I couldn't find) on mainstream tech sites I know of - maybe that is a good idea for new content for TechSpot?

Regarding the e-sport titles it would be great if besides the CS:GO (which as this point almost any new CPU can "max out") another one would be added to the standard benchmark game list. CoD: Warzone is pretty good example of e-sport game that scales with CPU (even past 8 cores), RAM and GPU.
BTW Warzone 2 is being released later this year - that might be a good moment to update the benchmark list with this one maybe?

FameChaser is a garbage source so I'll ignore those links.
Source 2 is the best you provided and those results look exactly as expected.

 

[ddferrari]

Dang, every time I build a high-end system it becomes 2nd-tier in no time... surprise!

Even my now "lowly" I7-9700K can't do Resizable Bar. I guess an 8-core chip OC'd at 5Ghz across all cores and 32GB DDR4 3200 ram no longer cuts it. Plus, three M.2 PCIe SSD's.

Still cheaper than a Harley, I guess.

 

[egrimm]

FameChaser is a garbage source so I'll ignore those links.
Source 2 is the best you provided and those results look exactly as expected.

FC might be "rough on the edges" but it doesn't mean he's wrong, but ok let's skip it and focus only on the 2 source which you find alright.

We were arguing if there is a significant performance difference when going from 3200MT/s to 4000MT/s kits.
In source 2. there are at least couple of games gaining ~10% fps from that.
Ultimately the question is: Is this significant performance boost?
IMHO: yes.
10% is like going for CPU OC from 5.0 to 5.5GHz (assuming linear scaling) or advertised IPC uplift of both new architectures Zen4 (13%) and RPL (7%).

Btw I don't want to derail the thread into RAM OC debate, my original point was that there is still no need or benefit for going for DDR5 kits right now and if you have a choice* then it's better to stick to DDR4.

*With AM5 you will not have that option and you'll need to go for DDR5 anyway so maybe that was the point you were making with this article? Showing that if you have no choice then the cheap DDR5 is not that bad/expansive now?

 

[Fantasillion]

Ryzen 5950X, 4x16GB DDR4.
Planning to upgrade to Ryzen 7950X, after carefully studying Steve's reviews and benchmarks

Totally makes sense to have 4 dimms in your case.

 

[BadThad]

Excellent article! If your building today it doesn't make any sense to go with DDR4.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Totally makes sense to have 4 dimms in your case.

If you need it, yeah. For what I do, 16GB is more than enough so I just have two DIMMs. Back in the days of DDR3, I did have 4 DIMMs because the largest I could get was 4GB.

 

[Gezzer]

What you say makes sense and I'm not really much of a gambler. I only got that Silicon Power RAM because it was 8GB for what ended up being less than $20CAD. I figured "If it sucks, I'm only out $15+HST." and bought it.

What I wasn't expecting was having to pay Canada Computers for an hour's labour to change it because ASUS has the RAM buried under the mobo and has no easy way to gain access to it. They literally had to take my craptop apart so yeah, it would have sucked if it didn't work. I've rebuilt craptops before but I'd really rather not go through that hassle if I don't have to.

As for the UMAX Cetus DDR3, well, that was about 12 years ago and I didn't have as much disposable income as I do now. I literally got 16GB for the same price as 8GB at Canada Computers, Tiger Direct or NCIX. It was a case of either I could afford it or not. These days, I tend to just buy whatever the best deal at Canada Computers or Memory Express is because I know that if it's defective, I can just take it right back. Lately, Team has had the best deals on RAM at the times when I was in the market for it.

Oh I hear you, and have also been stuck between staying within budget and playing it safe...er. Wow, NCIX, that takes me back. Used to be my go to site way back in the day. Went with Newegg when they went down the drain, and now I'm starting to think about moving to another retailer again. Newegg seems to becoming more of a third party reseller site like Amazon.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Oh I hear you, and have also been stuck between staying within budget and playing it safe...er. Wow, NCIX, that takes me back. Used to be my go to site way back in the day. Went with Newegg when they went down the drain, and now I'm starting to think about moving to another retailer again. Newegg seems to becoming more of a third party reseller site like Amazon.

Yeah it really is. I prefer to go to a brick-and-mortar store. I used to be pretty lucky as I had Canada Computers, Tiger Direct and NCIX all within a 10-minute drive of my home. Tiger Direct left Canada and we know what happened to NCIX. A Memory Express opened nearby so I have a couple of choices again. I stopped dealing with Newegg after I saw this video:

I stopped dealing with Amazon after watching this video:

 

[sreams]

The utter irrelevance of system memory in regards to gaming (and usually application) performance has been well known for decades.

Just going from single rank to dual rank on my 5900HX/3070 notebook increased framerates in Shadow of the Tomb Raider by about 10-15%.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Just going from single rank to dual rank on my 5900HX/3070 notebook increased framerates in Shadow of the Tomb Raider by about 10-15%.

Yeah, a lot of people don't realise just how crippling having only 1 RAM channel active is, especially with regard to gaming.

 

[DonquixoteIII]

RAM timings and speeds that your current CPU can work with are much more important to your arguments here than pure speed. More so in AMD than intel, but still... And quit using percentages. Percentages are meaningless. Worse, they can be misleading and are often used that way in fanboi articles. 1000% of zero is... Still zero.

On the other hand, your article does show just how unimportant in the general build your RAM truly is. Again, outside of CPU matching, there is no real reason to buy the most expensive over the least expensive. And avoiding RGB bling 'Saves You Money!' (tm)

 

[Avro Arrow]

You know, I just took a look at your 16GB link and sure, it's US$89 (CA$124) in the USA but in Canada, the same listing is for CA$170 (US$122). Amazon is an absolute joke and I'm glad I don't do business with Lex Bezos.

Meanwhile also in Canada, things are actually BETTER than this. At Canada Computers, Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-4800 is in stock for only CA$105 (US$76) and the RGB version is in stock for only CA$7 more at CA$112 (US$81). I'll happily take the RGB version for less than this bare Crucial costs. I don't really care though because I'll be using DDR4 for many years to come.

 

[dtascon07]

Hey hope you guys can help me Idk what to get for my i72700f

Ram ddr4 cl14-14-14-34 1.35v 3200mhz that I plan to run at 3600

Or ddr5 4800mhz cl 14

Thanks for the help

 

[dtascon07]

Sorry drr5 is cl40