RAM investment question

[Zenith_X1]

Looking for advice.  I'm in sort of a weird position hardware-wise.  I usually build my PC in pieces as I can afford it.  Currently running a 6700k, 1080 Ti for 1440p high refresh rate gaming...and 16 GB 2133 MHz RAM...not real proud of that RAM speed but it was purchased 4 or 5 years ago when I was running an HD 7970, followed by a GTX 960 when the 7970 failed early

 

Anyway, I plan on doing a larger upgrade into Ray-Tracing land soon.  This PC is primarily used for gaming so I'm waiting to see if upcoming Ryzen 3 successors will outcompete Intel 10000 series before picking a motherboard (though PCI-E 4 might sway me anyway), but RAM is the big question mark.  I could upgrade my RAM now and uplift my current PC with a kit that I carry over into the future PC, I could wait to buy it with everything else but leave performance on the table for when Cyberpunk 2077 releases, or I could hold out longer for DDR5.

 

Which option sounds most appealing for you and why?  Have games experienced big benefits from new DDR families in the past, or will DDR5 more likely be difficult to take advantage of for years?  Thanks!

[Haro]

skylake doesn't really benefit from faster ram, at least does not benefit a lot from it, you could just wait for zen 3 and check what it has to offer and then get a new kit.

[Cyracus]

intel sees modest performance improvements from ram up to 3000-3200mhz, ryzen gets performance increases up to 3600-3800.
ddr5 ain't happening until next year at least, best not to worry about tech that far out.

[Zenith_X1]

Thanks TofuHaroto and Cyracus, that's very helpful

 

Out of curiosity (as a gamer) it's easy to hear 'buy AMD CPUs' from LTT and JayZ2cents and just blindly go for it, but I couldn't help noticing that LTT, JZ, and GN found superior frame rates with the Intel 10th gen clock speeds.  It will be super interesting to see if Intel can still clinch it in 11th gen gaming, b/c I feel like gaming is Intel's best and perhaps only play for performance superiority this generation.  Do you guys think that the AMD is the better long-term CPU than the Intel (i.e. will be performant 4-5 years from now) due to higher core counts and an assumption that programmers will put far more effort into multi-threaded programming in the new console generation?  Or is it more likely that Intel will hold on to gaming for several years as they refine their 10nm node and (hopefully for the sake of competition) their 7nm node comes online?

[Cyracus]

Currently Intel has better max fps in gaming, Amd is much better price to performance (and isn't much worse in most games).
Idk about the future, my crystal ball is getting polished today

[Zenith_X1]

22 minutes ago, Cyracus said:

Currently Intel has better max fps in gaming, Amd is much better price to performance (and isn't much worse in most games).
Idk about the future, my crystal ball is getting polished today

I mean that's fair.  Both consoles going up to 8 cores pretty much guarantees that higher core counts are the way to go, especially because I'm only on 4c for now (6700k).  How about this question, if the PS5 is at 8 cores but also uses a proprietary chip for decompression, is it safe to say that 8 cores in a PC will not be enough to match for newer titles since the PC will need cores for decompression?

[Guest]

On 9/5/2020 at 8:56 AM, Cyracus said:

intel sees modest performance improvements from ram up to 3000-3200mhz, 
 

Which is an understatement while Intel exceeds at running memory well over 4000mhz.

[Zenith_X1]

Just now, ShrimpBrime said:

Which is an understatement while Intel exceeds at running memory well over 4000mhz.

I think he was saying that the FPS benefit per mhz of RAM is more substantial on Ryzen than Intel because of how Ryzen's Infinity fabric works, but also that neither really needs above the 3600 MHz that LTT recommended for Zen 2

[Guest]

Just now, Zenith_X1 said:

I think he was saying that the FPS benefit per mhz of RAM is more substantial on Ryzen than Intel because of how Ryzen's Infinity fabric works, but also that neither really needs above the 3600 MHz that LTT recommended for Zen 2

The performance increase with Ryzen is greatly linked to the Infinity Fabric running 1:1 ratio with the memory speed.

 

When the IF reaches it's max stable frequency, the increase in performance becomes a diminishing return while you have to uncouple the IF to push the ram further.

 

Intel has overclocking advantages over AMD including Cpu cache overclocking which brings a fist full of performance by it's self.

[Zenith_X1]

Just now, ShrimpBrime said:

The performance increase with Ryzen is greatly linked to the Infinity Fabric running 1:1 ratio with the memory speed.

 

When the IF reaches it's max stable frequency, the increase in performance becomes a diminishing return while you have to uncouple the IF to push the ram further.

 

Intel has overclocking advantages over AMD including Cpu cache overclocking which brings a fist full of performance by it's self.

That's fair, I do remember a few channels saying that 3800-4000 is about as high as Zen 2 can get before failing to post.

 

I've never tried to OC my CPU's cache, any recommended sources for info?

[Guest]

Just now, Zenith_X1 said:

That's fair, I do remember a few channels saying that 3800-4000 is about as high as Zen 2 can get before failing to post.

 

I've never tried to OC my CPU's cache, any recommended sources for info?

You can search Overclocking forums. The best information will be there. Most sites, the guides get updated to current Tech, so you may have to search the forums for the correct guide for your platform. Of course youtube should have plenty of videos too. 

 

 

[Cyracus]

2 hours ago, Zenith_X1 said:

I mean that's fair.  Both consoles going up to 8 cores pretty much guarantees that higher core counts are the way to go, especially because I'm only on 4c for now (6700k).  How about this question, if the PS5 is at 8 cores but also uses a proprietary chip for decompression, is it safe to say that 8 cores in a PC will not be enough to match for newer titles since the PC will need cores for decompression?

No, consoles operate differently than pcs in fundamental design. best I can do to explain it right now: all the same parts, different piping

As @ShrimpBrime mentioned ryzen is limited by architectural design. Uncoupling IF from memory speeds almost always degrades performance.
The memory speed on Intel I mentioned is about diminishing returns, past 3200 showed marginal gains in the last good test I saw (limited variables, multiple kits, listed timings) I'd source something but the google and I aren't getting along.