Crucial RAM 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR5 4800MHz CL40 Desktop Memory CT2K8G48C40U5

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If Raptor Lake does end up being a big step forward and worth upgrading to, you'd be best off just buying a new Z790 motherboard with DDR5 memory and selling the DDR4 gear second hand as it will retain its value well, Intel motherboards always do due to heavy product segmentation. At that point you should be getting a better motherboard anyway and much higher quality DDR5 memory at a significantly better price. Intel’s 12th-gen Alder Lake S chips actually support both DDR4 and DDR5 (along with low-power versions). Intel launched Alder Lake with DDR5 motherboards, but knowing that new technology brings higher prices and low availability, motherboards that also support 12th-gen Alder Lake and current DDR4 memory will be common for at least the first year or two. Is DDR5 more future proof? Based on those figures, DDR5 does very little to aid the Core i9-12900K across a wide range of today's games. Interestingly, Far Cry 6 benefits massively from higher memory bandwidth and that's not because the VRAM buffer has been exceeded as we're using a 16GB card. Rather, this game dips into the system memory quite heavily and as a result we're seeing up to 22% greater performance at 1440p when looking at the 1% lows. But DDR5 supply is expected to improve next year, and so will pricing, so we wanted to take a more in-depth look at what DDR5 has to offer gamers when using an Alder Lake CPU, and this will help us determine at which point you should bother with the new memory technology.

Starting with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, we see a 13% to 15% performance improvement with newer DDR5 memory, taking the average frame rate from 121 fps at 1080p, to 137 fps. But more impressive than that was the 17% performance boost seen at 1440p when looking at the 1% lows with a 12% boost to the average frame rate. In theory, this should reduce the complexity of the motherboard and give the individual module maker more control over as well as the ability to optimize power delivery for each module.

A few weeks ago we reviewed Intel's new Alder Lake architecture for the first time and with it we also got our first chance to play around with DDR5 memory. In our Core i9-12900K review, we tested both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a range of applications and games, to find that the faster, more expensive memory offered little extra performance for the most part, and this was particularly true for gamers.

Now that we've compared DDR4 and DDR5 memory across a massive range of games, the next step is to provide a detailed memory scaling video for Alder Lake and that's already in the works. The plan is to compare a wide range of DDR4 and DDR5 memory to find the sweet spot for Intel 12th-gen series, in both games and applications. Stay tuned for that. Shopping ShortcutsSo why do this at all? It’s mostly being done because you can’t really quadruple the density of the chip without additional safety layers. Today, you’ll mostly only find ECC used in servers and workstations, because it’s done for mission critical reasons. The on-die ECC in DDR5 is just something had to be done to make the high speed and high density a possibility. The first round of DDR5 is expected to appear at the same time as Intel's upcoming Alder Lake CPUs---the latter half of 2021. A number of companies are getting ready for the big RAM switch such as Corsair, Kingston, and TeamGroup. But wait... Raptor Lake will support DDR4 memory, and while it's possible DDR5 will be of more benefit in a year, it's still not going to be massive and gamers will almost always end up GPU limited in games, rather than CPU limited. The big issue with this future-proof argument is the same as before, they hinge on the investment paying off in the long run with very few short-term advantages.