Question RAM speed question for a new build

[PuzzledToo]

It’s been a 4 years since my last PC build & have a question about RAM speed.
I plan on getting a B760M Pro RS mobo with an i5-14500 CPU. The RAM specs state the following:

- Dual Channel DDR5 Memory Technology
- 4 x DDR5 DIMM Slots
- Supports DDR5 non-ECC, un-buffered memory up to 7200+(OC)*
- Max. capacity of system memory: 192GB
- Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 3.0

*1DPC 1R Up to 7200+ MHz (OC), 4800 MHz Natively.
1DPC 2R Up to 6000+ MHz (OC), 4400 MHz Natively.
2DPC 1R Up to 5600+ MHz (OC), 4000 MHz Natively.
2DPC 2R Up to 4800+ MHz (OC), 3600 MHz Natively.

I never saw any of those 1DPC or 2DPC specs before & am not sure what they all mean. I did Google the topic but not sure how to determine if the RAM I want to use is 1R or 2R.

I wanted to get G. Skill DDR5 Ripjaws RAM with 16GB (2 x 8GB) but it appears they don’t make that kit and I’d need to go with 32B (2 x 16GB). Or maybe use Crucial RAM which comes in a 2x8GB kit.

DDR5 6000MHz seems to be a popular speed. From what I’ve read, speed does not seem to have a huge impact on performance. One article/comment said 4800MHz was the sweet spot. Am I wasting money or pushing the system into a posible unstable condition by using 6000MHz RAM with no appresiable gain in performance.?

Any comments would be appreciated,
Thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

I would look into a DDR5-6200MHz ram kit for your platform. Stick to a dual channel/two stick kit. You could look into the memory QVL for your motherboard or make sure you're on the latest BIOS and you should be able to put pretty much any 2x16GB DDR5-6200Mhz ram kit on the board.

 

[bill001g]

I am not so sure who would recommend 4800 over 6000. Maybe a AMD person since AMD had lots of issues with faster ddr5 memory when it first came out.

6000 seems to be the popular number people buy but be very careful the rest of the cas timing number are just as important.

Key if you want to reduce any compatibility issues is to use the QVL list from the motherboard site. This though is not always updated so you can also try the QVL lists on the memory makers sites.

1R and 2R used to mean if it was doubled sided memory. It is not that simple any more but is still true most the time.

I doubt you can find 2R memory kits when you are looking at 2x16. The ones I saw always seem to be things where each stick was 24 or even 32.

The less chips you have on each stick it seem the faster it can run.

I would not stress a great deal about it. Find something that is on sale and is on the QVL list for your board. The main thing I saw people talk about where it makes a big difference is when you are using the embedded GPU in the CPU. Then it is using some of the system memory for the video frames etc so faster memory makes more difference.

 

[hotaru.hino]

DDR5 6000MHz seems to be a popular speed. From what I’ve read, speed does not seem to have a huge impact on performance. One article/comment said 4800MHz was the sweet spot. Am I wasting money or pushing the system into a posible unstable condition by using 6000MHz RAM with no appresiable gain in performance.?

DDR5-6000 doesn't offer appreciable gains in performance over DDR5-4800. You can find articles floating around on the web that report this if you look up "intel 13th gen memory scaling" or similar (yes I know you're considering a 14th gen, but it's a 13th gen refresh).

I did tests on my own PC with an i5-14600K and basically found no appreciable difference between DDR5-4800 and DDR5-6000. Plus these CPUs are still what I'd consider the early users of new RAM speed, so the CPUs themselves may not be able to take full advantage of it anyway. Especially considering that it's also compatible with DDR4, so Intel has to make sure that slower RAM speeds don't affect its performance that badly.

 

[logainofhades]

DDR5 6000 CL30 is kinda the sweet spot, for price/performance right now, for both AMD and Intel.

 

[PuzzledToo]

I don’t do anything that needs 32GB RAM therefore. Not trying to be cheap, but I’m not going to overclock the CPU or play games & figured 16GB is enough. But if go with G. Skill it will have to be 32GB.

I did look at the QVL list which lists several G. Skill sticks & says the list may not be complete.

These are from the QVL list. What’s the significance of the “A-die”? Are those better chips since the CL is 30 vs. 32 for the other chip?
F5-6000J3238F16GX2-RS5K Hynix
F5-6000J3040F16GX2-RS5K Hynix A-die

When looking at some RAM I noticed the G.Skill typically had CL of 30 to 36 and Crucial was typically 40 to 46. This was for 5600MHz and 6000Mhz RAM.

Should I lean toward G. Skill because of the lower CL?

 

[hotaru.hino]

Should I lean toward G. Skill because of the lower CL?

Lower CL between the same RAM speeds is better. But if you want to dig in further, divide the CL number by the RAM speed to get basically the latency in time.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I never saw any of those 1DPC or 2DPC specs before & am not sure what they all mean. I did Google the topic but not sure how to determine if the RAM I want to use is 1R or 2R.

1DPC - means 1 DIMM per channel. 2x8GB in dual channel mode is 1DPC.
2DPC - means 2 DIMMs per channel. 4x8GB in dual channel mode is 2DPC.
1R - means single rank
2R - means dual rank.
Often double sided modules are dual rank and single sided modules single rank. But not always.

 

[35below0]

Pay more attention to latency. You could do worse than look for a G.Skill 2x16 kit that is CL30 or CL32. Exact speed doesn't matter. 4800Mhz is "native", no overclocking involved. And it's probably enough. 6000Mhz or higher is also ok, but CL30/32 is more important.

 

[PuzzledToo]

I'm looking at the Newegg web site & they do not list any G.Skill lower than 5200. However other brands are listed.

I'm going to get the G.Skill Ripjaws 6000MHz 32GB (2 x 16) kit which has a CAS Latency of 30.

 

[35below0]

I'm looking at the Newegg web site & they do not list any G.Skill lower than 5200. However other brands are listed.

I'm going to get the G.Skill Ripjaws 6000MHz 32GB (2 x 16) kit which has a CAS Latency of 30.

Yeah but check the motherboard QVL and G.Skill's RAM configurator. Make sure you buy compatible RAM to avoid the hassle of having to return/replace an incompatible kit.

Technically, 4800Mhz is non-overclocked speed so it's not neccessary to mention. All DDR5 RAM can run at that speed. Depending on the motherboard/CPU, DDR5 can run at 5200 Mhz without overclocking.

 

[PuzzledToo]

The RAM I ordered is on the QVL list.

The 6000MHz DDR5 does appear to be the dominant DDR5 speed on the Newegg site. That provides a lot of choices, however a lot of the modules appear to be different packaging of the same G.Skill RAM. IOW an RBG version of the black Ripjaws. I may not need 6000MHz but it does have a low latency and it had a small price discount so the cost was good too.

 

[PuzzledToo]

Thank you everyone for all the information.

I thought about upgrading my current PC but it literally died a couple days ago. Right in the middle of looking at something it shut down & has no power. The PSU is good & I even tried another one. The PC just does not wake up. No fans or lights. I swapped the RAM around, removed the SSD, etc., but to no avail. Just will not POST. Time to move on.

Thanks again to all.