Question DDR4 or DDR5 best for MMORPGs with 13900K and RTX 3090?

[Antisthenes]

I only use my rig for gaming, especially ESO and Guild Wars 2, but have heard that it will take maybe two years before DDR5 becomes so popular that gaming companies decide to optimize games for DDR5. Is this true? Gaming companies cater to average gamers, so it seems reasonable that they will optimize games for DDR4 until most people can afford to buy DDR5. But have also read that MMORPGs need fast memory to reduce microstuttering, and I hate microstuttering intensely, so will DDR5 reduce microstuttering all in all? Or is it best for an MMORPG gamer to use DDR4 the next two years and then upgrade?

 

[Eximo]

An interesting question.

You are still going to have people on DDR4 when DDR5's lifecycle is ending. MMOs have to reach a wide audience so it doesn't make sense for them to exclude the average computer.

The consoles are on a shared 16GB GDDR6 memory pool. So in that regard the average gamer is beyond even DDR5 performance. MMOs aren't usually targeted at consoles though.

DDR5 has some significant architectural changes. Each stick is essentially a dual bank on its own. (two 32bit instead of a single 64bit), which effectively makes it quad channel when in dual channel mode. And the bandwidth increase is significant. Also means that there is little impact with existing games when running a single stick of memory. Memory voltage is controlled on the memory module for greater control. Also allows the memory controller to clock down during light workloads and save power. All DDR5 is unbuffered ECC, which is nice.

Only real penalty is latency. However, we are already seeing kits that equal the performance of higher spec DDR4. DDR5 6000 CL 32 is almost the same latency as DDR4 3200 CL18. There are few faster kits, but the price is extreme for the moment.

I would say it depends on how often you upgrade your PC. If you blow money on higher end DDR5 now, it will likely be mid-range towards the end of the DDR5 cycle. As long as you re-use it at least once, probably worth it.

In the short term, DDR4 offers significant savings, but you won't be able to carry it to your next build.