Bond007
Well-known member
A bit more complete testing of DDR4 vs DDR5 for Alder Lake (compared to some others out there). The only thing I wish it had was DDR5 tested at a more mainstream freq.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-ddr4-vs-ddr5/
"Intel memory controllers aren't very picky about dual-rank modules, at least while you stay in Gear 1. In our performance results, Dual-Rank DDR4 Gear 1 at DDR4-3200/3600 is able to stay ahead of their DDR4-4000/4400 single-rank Gear 2 counterparts. In conclusion, you could avoid paying the hefty DDR5 early-adopter tax if you're willing to live with a single-digit percentage performance hit in applications, and a negligible hit in gaming performance. On the other hand, if you want the absolute highest performance, DDR5 is what you want, but be ready to pay for it."
You can read through for specific application or game (at various resolutions) performance, but here are a couple as a summary (all scores with just the RAM speed listed are with the 12900K):
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-ddr4-vs-ddr5/
"Intel memory controllers aren't very picky about dual-rank modules, at least while you stay in Gear 1. In our performance results, Dual-Rank DDR4 Gear 1 at DDR4-3200/3600 is able to stay ahead of their DDR4-4000/4400 single-rank Gear 2 counterparts. In conclusion, you could avoid paying the hefty DDR5 early-adopter tax if you're willing to live with a single-digit percentage performance hit in applications, and a negligible hit in gaming performance. On the other hand, if you want the absolute highest performance, DDR5 is what you want, but be ready to pay for it."
You can read through for specific application or game (at various resolutions) performance, but here are a couple as a summary (all scores with just the RAM speed listed are with the 12900K):
