What do you think the limit of higher capacity DDR4 will be?

[Zephyre14]

I am slowly building a high power desktop on the Z170 platform that I intend to last me quite some time and I have been keeping an eye out on the higher power memory.

It seems to gradually be getting faster Mhz and tighter timings , but I was wondering where about everyone thinks it will/should top out.

I know there are 2 or 4GB sticks reaching up into 4266MHz with 19 CAS latency. Conversly I see 8GB sticks with 2400MHz and 10 CAS latency.

The best I see at the 16 GB "limit" is 2133Mhz at 13 CAS, 3466MHz with 16CAS, or 3200MHZwith 14 CAS, depending on where you personally place the priority.

Now I am not expecting a 16GB stick to hit 4266MMHz with 10 CAS, but I was wondering where everyone thinks these chips will/should top out at for factory release levels? (Obviously master over clockers and chip lottery mean you can get higher if you try, but the better the base the better the likely overclock top is too)

 

[greens]

(CL/(freq-in-MHZ) * 1000) = timing in ns

(19/4266)*1000)= 4.45ns
(14/3200)*1000)=4.37ns
(10/2400)*1000)=4.16ns

You can see that CAS has a more dramatic impact on true latency being the numerator.

That said, I do not believe we will see DDR4 going lower than 4ns.

You can see that despite their wildly different stats they perform very similar when you do the math.

 

[Zephyre14]

(CL/(freq-in-MHZ) * 1000) = timing in ns

(19/4266)*1000)= 4.45ns
(14/3200)*1000)=4.37ns
(10/2400)*1000)=4.16ns

You can see that CAS has a more dramatic impact on true latency being the numerator.

That said, I do not believe we will see DDR4 going lower than 4ns.

You can see that despite their wildly different stats they perform very similar when you do the math.

I probably should have included the calculations too. I was more going for showing the variance in the "print numbers". I appreciate the calculations though they are more important in the long run.

I wonder if 4ns is really that big of a barrier? If the 8GB 10 CAS stick can get up to 2500Mhz you have 4ns exactly. Or 12 CAS at 3000 which is a bit farther off of the current 16GB top, or 18 CAS at 4500, which is relatively close to the current 4GB. I don't think it would get much below it, but I could see some things maybe reach into the 3.9something range by the end of DDR4s life span.

Curious on that measure, any idea the top ns people are hitting with overclocks?