1080p Gaming Benchmarks
To start the gaming testing, we will run benchmarks at the 1080p resolution which makes the games selected very much CPU bound from a performance perspective (as we have an RTX 3090 as the test bench card today). This resolution should allow seeing what, if any, differences can be seen between the memory speeds when the CPU is the limiting factor on performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Starting off with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we find the Viper 6200MHz memory out on top of the Corsair 5600MHz by 3FPS which is 3FPS faster than the 4800MHz memory. When 3FPS is the difference, we’re talking under a 1.5% performance difference overall.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Next up with Horizon Zero Dawn, the Viper 6200MHz prevails once again but this time by a margin of 4FPS over the Corsair 5600MHz. The 4800MHz memory picks up the rear by a single FPS. Again, we’re not talking about a material difference in this game between the entrants.
Watch Dogs: Legion
Loading up Watch Dogs Legion, we find the Viper 6200MHz out front by a single FPS over the Corsair 5600MHz which was two faster than the 4800MHz memory. Again, this is more of an academic difference to examine than a real-world one.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
In Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, the Viper 6200MHz tied with the 4800MHz memory who both beat the Corsair 5600MHz memory by 1FPS. I’ll let the reader complete the next sentence in their head about how much of a difference it made. (Ed: You forgot to leave a blank line for them to complete it!)
4K Gaming
For our second round of gaming testing, we will put our pinkies out and we will run benchmarks at the 4K resolution which makes the games selected very much GPU bound from a performance perspective (as we have an RTX 3090 as the test bench card today). This resolution should allow seeing what, if any, differences can be seen between the memory speeds when the GPU is the limiting factor on performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Now things start to get a bit more interesting at 4k with Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We find the Viper 6200MHz memory out in front of the 4800MHz memory by 4FPS and 5FPS ahead of the Corsair 5600MHz. This is a 5.6% spread, which is the most significant that we’ve seen in a gaming scenario so far.
Horizon Zero Dawn
While the last game got our hopes up, Horizon Zero Dawn brings us back to reality with a virtual tie across the board at 4K.
Watch Dogs: Legion
Watch Dogs Legion could not be one-upped by the last game, so it made sure that all memory flavors landed in a draw at 62FPS.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint
Finally with Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, we see a rounding error (of 1 FPS) between the top-performing Viper 6200MHz memory and the 4800MHz memory.
Discussion (5 replies)
Join Discussion →Ohhhh.. DDR5 reviews... Just in time for gaining knowledge on what to get when AM5 / Zen4 stuff starts rolling out. I've been reading that CL isn't the end-all-be-all value to OC on with DDR5. CL40 is faster than CL36, as the frequency gains (6200 @ CL40 vs 5600 @ CL36) outweigh the latency.
Buildzoid has a great video on the subject: [embedded media]
BuildZoid's video certainly is informative, and it's also important to mention that it's not just the frequency gains, but also being able to tighten all of the timings that come after the '6200-40-40-40' primaries.
It's also worth mentioning that DDR5 is currently very strongly stratified by manufacturer, and if looking to push performance, out of Micron, Samsung, and Hynix, one should try to find modules with Hynix DRAM ICs if at all possible. Additionally, I'd recommend paying attention to module cooling if pushing performance as well!
Well, as with prior generations, Intel vs AMD platform architecture will probably make a difference here in performance. If you go back to the DDR1 days looking at the Athlon vs P4 Northwoods, the former cared a LOT about latency while the latter did not. Thus, I wouldn't extrapolate the observed performance generalities on Alder Lake to Zen4 until testing is done.
My extrapolation is: it depends on how much L3 cache is available and how well it's implemented. DDR5 in it's best implementations is already "I win" levels of performance.
I just wanted to support Space_Ranger's suggestion of watching the Buildzoid video. I watched it when it came out, very informative. The general rule of thumb with DDR5 moving forward is going to be for more MT/s, but as David suggested, how much these things affect Intel vs AMD platform can be different.