So, I just got my hands on probably the most INSANE DDR5 RAM kit I have ever seen,
and probably the craziest RAM kit in general too. So insane
that I can’t even really show you just how crazy it actually is.
But, even though I don’t have an Intel system to show this kit off fully,
it did get me thinking about a question I’ve had for a while now.
Since DDR5 is technically “dual channel” already, is it worth just getting a single,
high-capacity module and maybe saving a buck, or, like with DDR4, are you going to be leaving
some real gaming performance on the table by not getting at least two of the things?
Well, if you’ve been thinking the same question, or just want to see
these ridiculous Evo 5 Modules from GEIL in action, then let’s just get right into it.
Right after I get into this ridiculously good ad spot from our sponsor PCBuilder.
PCBuilder is a service currently available at Computer Mania here in South Africa that makes
buying or building an awesome gaming system an absolute breeze. Just choose the games you
want to play, pick a budget that doesn’t make your wallet cry, and PCBuilder does the rest.
PCBuilder will tell you how many juicy frames you’ll be
able to get out of your new system at various resolutions and settings,
and it helps you customize the build as much as you want. See a part or a peripheral you like
better? Grab it and PCBuilder will update everything accordingly. Simple as that.
PCBuilder will also keep track of stuff like compatibility and power requirements for you,
so if you accidentally switch out a part that won’t work with the rest of your system,
PCBuilder will let you know and give you a list of other parts that will.
PCBuilder and Computer Mania will build the system, install Windows (along with a
free month of Xbox Game Pass) for you, and test and benchmark it to make sure
that it’s ready to game as soon as you get your hands on it. All of their builds come
standard with a two-year warranty (almost double compared to the competition), and
each part in the system is also still covered by their manufacturer warranties. Warranty-ception!
Check out PCBuilder at Computer Mania right now using the link in the description,
or if you want to pick up any of the parts featured in this video,
or anything else for that matter, grab it all at Takealot also linked below the like button.
Okay, so along with a bunch of very important, but kind of technical stuff that channels like Gamer’s
Nexus have already covered way better than I ever can, let’s just take a quick look at what DDR5 is
bringing to the table since that’s obviously going to be important when we get to testing.
In a nutshell, DDR5 is just plain way faster. Much faster transfer speeds and higher memory
bandwidth, and a healthy boost to clock speeds too depending on the modules in question,
of course. Timings aren’t as tight yet as they can be, but even those will get there eventually.
Along with that, DDR5 modules ship with their power management modules on the DIMMs themselves
instead of having it on the motherboard, and they’re generally a lot more efficient too.
As for the part that triggered the whole question behind this video in the first place,
DDR4 modules, without getting too technical about it because I actually want to make a
shorter video for once, use a single “channel” for communication between all the bits and bobs,
so if you’re only running one DDR4 module, you’re running in single channel mode,
and by adding another module to go dual channel has proven to boost system performance overall.
But DDR5 is different in that instead of putting all of its bit-eggs in one basket, it splits them
into two channels. These two channels aren’t just like combining two DDR4 modules in one, it’s more
like taking that one module and splitting its bandwidth in half, with one channel handling each
half. I know, probably a bit confusing, but all we really need to know here is that DDR5 modules
are in very simplified terms “dual channel” all on their own. And if you’re like me, you
heard that and thought that you might be able to get away with just a single module and still get
about the same performance out of it as you would with like two lower-capacity modules or something.
Which is why this video exists, because you know I tested that theory and the results are uhm uh,
pretty interesting.
But before we jump into the benchmarks, can we just take a moment to appreciate
this monstrous kit GEIL trusted me to play around with for a bit?
These kits are rated to go all the way up to 8000MHz
which is a clock speed that I can’t even wrap my head around right now, and neither can AMD
which is why the Ryzen 7000 system I used for testing can only really handle 6000MHz right
now. The new Intel systems can handle much more than that though, so if you’re with team blue,
you’ll actually be able to get the most out of these things. They’re also available in versions
with latencies as low as CL32 (which by current DDR5 standards is right in the sweet spot).
But let’s be honest, as impressive as the specs these things pack are,
they seemingly exist for one reason and one reason only: to be as bonkers as possible.
Each module has two friggin fans built right into them, and both,
along with a massive diffusion strip on the top is RGBlinged out the bunghole. Like seriously,
if there was ever an RGB RAM competition, these things would take the cake every single time.
Unfortunately, as with a lot of these showcase-level products, most of that is
a bit gimmicky. As showstopping as that RGB is, especially around the fans which look SO good,
there are gaps in the shroud where the LEDs shine through like tiny neon signs 60cm from your face,
and it’s a bit distracting to say the least. And speaking of distracting,
those awesome-looking tiny little fans go HARD and they don’t quit.
I spent a long time trying to figure out how to set a fan curve for them or even to just stop
them entirely, but I couldn’t find any way to do that without just sticking something in there and
breaking them. Which I’ve wanted to do on more than one occasion because they’re loud as hell.
And as we’ll see in a bit, they don’t even really do all that much to keep temps in check,
so unless GEIL releases some software to control the fans, I hope you like wearing headphones.
That being said, gimmicky or not, these things look absolutely sick. They’re kinda big for one
thing, measuring in at 7mm thick and about 5.4cm high, so you’ll have to keep your
CPU cooler clearance in mind, but I like how big and intimidating they look. The shroud is pretty
gamery but looks and feels premium, I love the crazy RGB, and overall I just really love these
things even though they’re a bit impractical, gimmicky, and just completely ludicrous.
But that’s enough of that, this isn’t a review,
we have some spicey numbers to look at, and I think it’s about time we get right to it.
For our test system, we’re using AMD’s Ryzen 9 7900X, cooled by a 240mm AIO from Cooler Master,
AMD’s RX 6900XT, Crucial’s P5 Plus for storage, Antec’s Signature 1000W power
supply, and it’s all slotted into MSI’s Pro X670-P WiFi motherboard.
For our RAM we’ll be using the beastly 32GB dual module kit of GEIL’s EVO 5 that we just drooled
over, and a single 32GB module of Crucial’s DDR5. Both kits were tested at 5400MHz and
were running the exact same CL38 timings, F-clock was manually set to 1800, and U-clock was set to
match memory clock. So basically unless I screwed something up majorly (which is entirely possible),
we should have a clear answer about whether two sticks of DDR5 is in fact better than just one.
So let’s rock. Oh, and I’m also going to toss in the results of the EVO kit
running as fast as I can get it to go on this system just for the fun of it.
Alright, let’s kick things off with Cinebench, a test that is pretty notorious for not showing
good memory scaling, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what we’ve got. Nothing too special
to see there. The Blender benchmark has a pretty similar reputation for not showing great scaling,
and again that seems to be the case here too, but at least here’s the first case
where the two sticks show at least a small victory over the single stick.
7-zip, on the other hand, has historically favored memory configurations quite a lot,
and this is where our theory starts to go off the rails a bit, with the
dual GEIL kit walking out with a pretty demanding lead in the compression results,
and to a smaller but no less interesting extent in the decompression results.
Moving on to our synthetic gaming benchmarks in the form of Unigine’s Superposition and 3DMark’s
Time Spy, things are starting to get a little more interesting. In both tests,
it’s actually the single module that walks out with the overall win,
albeit a relatively small one, and it’s only in Time Spy with the suped-up Geil kit that
we see anything approaching a meaningful victory, but that doesn’t really count.
What does count is real gaming performance, so that’s up next, and as you’ll see from the charts,
it’s looking pretty good for our theory. In Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Cyberpunk, and F122,
even though our dual memory kit does come out ahead of our single stick in all three cases,
it was only by an extremely small margin. Out of all three of those games, the biggest win came
from F122, and even there the two sticks were only about 2.9% faster than the single stick.
So, job’s done. You don’t need more than one DDR5 module to get all of the juicy frames you want,
right? Uhm… Well, not quite.
Apparently, while some games don’t seem to care all that much either way, others definitely do.
Both Hitman 3 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw the two modules take a pretty substantial
lead over the single module, with both showing a 10% overall improvement to
average FPS numbers, while The Riftbreaker also saw a more than modest 9.5% uplift.
So that throws a bit of a wrench in the cogs. But not nearly as much as in Spider-Man Remastered,
where having two modules instead of one got us our biggest uplift yet of
13.8% which is definitely something to write home to your dog about.
And even though the numbers for the rest of the games tested weren’t necessarily all
that impressive, the two modules did consistently outpace the single module in all of them, whether
by 4.7% in Far Cry 6, or all the way up to 7.1% in God of War. When it comes to real games, it seems
clear from my testing that even though you’re not always going to see massive gains in every game,
the old adage of two modules are better than one still applies to varying degrees with DDR5.
But even then, with all of the numbers tallied up,
our kit of two modules only outperformed the single module by 6.3% overall, which,
depending on the kit you’re looking at, should easily be a number you can
live with if you’re on a tight budget or find a great deal on a single DDR5 module.
So basically, even though you’re probably going to want to grab another module eventually,
you can still more than get away with just a single one without having to worry TOO
much about losing out on a couple of extra frames while you save up.
And yeah, hope you guys found this little experiment as fun to watch as I did putting it all
together, and remember to check out PCBuilder at Computer Mania to buy or build the gaming system
of your dreams, and go get all of your other things over at Takealot, both linked down below.
Alright, see you guys in the next one. Cheers!