2666MHz to 3400MHz CL15 upgrade thoughts?

[Lord Bloobus]

I've been trying to deck out my PC with fresh OC's on everything and beefing it up for one last blowout on this chipset because I have to buy an entirely new mobo + CPU in probably 1 or 2 more CPU cycles if I'm lucky.

So, I was wondering if sticking some new 3400 CL15 would give me any measurable benefit over my 2666 CL15, the motherboard maxes out at 3466MHz compatibility which would be an easily achievable RAM OC. The answer in my own head is "No, not really, no" but I thought I would put it out into the world for other users to judge for themselves. I'm not sure when DDR5 will hit a consumer board but I bet it does in a few years (2-3), so I'm both looking ahead for my current and prospective hardware.

Thoughts?

[Moonzy]

for the 6600k in your sig? prob not worth it

 

i wouldnt invest in DDR4 now, when DDR5 might be dropping next year or the year after

[Lord Bloobus]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

for the 6600k in your sig? prob not worth it

 

i wouldnt invest in DDR4 now, when DDR5 might be dropping next year or the year after

Pretty much mirroring my own thoughts, since there's no real news about DDR5 for consumer boards I think we might have it by the end of next year at the soonest.

[RobFRaschke]

Measurable performance improvement in what?

 

Benchmarks? Probably.

 

3D animation? Yes.

 

Games with a 6600K and 1080? Not unless you're playing a particularly CPU and memory intensive game, no.

[Lord Bloobus]

Just now, RobFRaschke said:

Measurable performance improvement in what?

 

Benchmarks? Probably.

 

3D animation? Yes.

 

Games with a 6600K and 1080? Not unless you're playing a particularly CPU and memory intensive game, no.

We'll have to see how it handles Cyberpunk 2077!

[Chiyawa]

6 minutes ago, Lord Bloobus said:

I'm not sure when DDR5 will hit a consumer board but I bet it does in a few years (2-3)

DDR5 can appear as early as next year (2021).

 

7 minutes ago, Lord Bloobus said:

So, I was wondering if sticking some new 3400 CL15 would give me any measurable benefit over my 2666 CL15, the motherboard maxes out at 3466MHz compatibility which would be an easily achievable RAM OC.

You can always check your motherboard website and search for compatibility list. If it is compatible, it will work. I'm not sure if I heard of 3400MHz RAM, but I think many common RAM runs 3466MHz.

[Lord Bloobus]

Just now, Chiyawa said:

DDR5 can appear as early as next year (2021).

 

You can always check your motherboard website and search for compatibility list. If it is compatible, it will work. I'm not sure if I heard of 3400MHz RAM, but I think many common RAM runs 3466MHz.

It exists, but you are correct that most of it is available at 3466, I could probably even get 3200 and crank it up there myself, I'm just lazy, and for $10 I can have it already there

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Lord Bloobus said:

Pretty much mirroring my own thoughts, since there's no real news about DDR5 for consumer boards I think we might have it by the end of next year at the soonest.

upgrading RAM as an afterthought is normally not worth it unless you need more capacity

it's something to consider when building, not an afterthought purchase

 

but if you're looking to upgrade that CPU soon, you can see what CPU you're upgrading to and what RAM fits it best

[RobFRaschke]

Just now, Lord Bloobus said:

Pretty much mirroring my own thoughts, since there's no real news about DDR5 for consumer boards I think we might have it by the end of next year at the soonest.

There is significant speculation that LGA1200 has the pin count built in for both PCIe Gen4 and DDR5. JEDEC finalized the standard in July of this year, so Intel had plenty of time to make sure the socket would be compatible based on pre-spec information and then the finalized spec. Zen 3 is the last hurrah for AM4 most likely, so AM5 debuting within 2 years with DDR5 and by that time, likely PCIe Gen 5 on the Ryzen 5000 series sounds exactly like something AMD would LOVE to be able to market.

[Lord Bloobus]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

upgrading RAM as an afterthought is normally not worth it unless you need more capacity

it's something to consider when building, not an afterthought purchase

 

but if you're looking to upgrade that CPU soon, you can see what CPU you're upgrading to and what RAM fits it best

Yeah, extra RAM is more an extravagance I can afford but don't necessarily need for performance, but the desire to eke the most performance out of what I have is tempting

[RobFRaschke]

3 minutes ago, Lord Bloobus said:

We'll have to see how it handles Cyberpunk 2077!

You'll get 1080p at 60fps, I'm sure, it just depends on how much eye candy you need. Try running ARK in a private local server and see what you can hit it with if you want to see where you move the load from CPU to GPU.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Lord Bloobus said:

Yeah, extra RAM is more an extravagance I can afford but don't necessarily need for performance, but the desire to eke the most performance out of what I have is tempting

that budget is better spent elsewhere in most cases

like a better GPU or smth, though your i5 already has a 1080, which is a good pairing

 

put it aside for your next upgrade

[RobFRaschke]

Just now, Lord Bloobus said:

Yeah, extra RAM is more an extravagance I can afford but don't necessarily need for performance, but the desire to eke the most performance out of what I have is tempting

Use the money to upgrade from a base model video card to a good AIB model with better VRMs and cooling and you'll see a bigger difference than ram could net you on the 6600K. The same will not be true for your next CPU most likely. Intel's 9th and 10th gen in addition to Ryzen have gotten more sensitive to ram speed and latency than anything previous and I imagine that trend will continue into the first generation of DDR5 platforms.

[Lord Bloobus]

4 minutes ago, RobFRaschke said:

You'll get 1080p at 60fps, I'm sure, it just depends on how much eye candy you need. Try running ARK in a private local server and see what you can hit it with if you want to see where you move the load from CPU to GPU.

I plan on getting a 3080 so I'll probably bump my monitor to 144Hz since I usually just run at 120Hz as it's more consistent for my current hardware. I don't figure it being too much of an issue for at least another year or so, which is the entire reason I'm planning out ahead.

[GuruMeditationError]

4 hours ago, Lord Bloobus said:

I've been trying to deck out my PC with fresh OC's on everything and beefing it up for one last blowout on this chipset because I have to buy an entirely new mobo + CPU in probably 1 or 2 more CPU cycles if I'm lucky.

So, I was wondering if sticking some new 3400 CL15 would give me any measurable benefit over my 2666 CL15, the motherboard maxes out at 3466MHz compatibility which would be an easily achievable RAM OC. The answer in my own head is "No, not really, no" but I thought I would put it out into the world for other users to judge for themselves. I'm not sure when DDR5 will hit a consumer board but I bet it does in a few years (2-3), so I'm both looking ahead for my current and prospective hardware.

Thoughts?

DDR5 was expected to be here already and will probably be here soon. I've read it'll take a year or so to mature after release, but I'm not sure if that's correct; it's a bit beyond my understanding.

Rocket Lake is the next Intel CPU to be released followed by Alder Lake which is rumoured to support DDR5. Rocket Lake kind of supports PCIe 4 also (I think?), and hopefully Alder Lake should probably fully support it, so if you can hold out a little longer it might be worth while.

As for getting faster RAM, if you can sell your existing RAM to offset the cost it might be worth doing. It might depend on what you have more of: time or money (time to put into eBaying your current RAM or the money not to really have to).

Re. getting higher capacity: more than two sticks is going to put strain on your motherboard's memory controller so you might want to avoid more than two RAM sticks to avoid that issue, if you want to overclock them or use XMP. Also 8GB sticks are faster than 16Gb sticks so if you can get away with 2 x 8 it could mean a more stable overclock and faster overall RAM. As far as I know there aren't games that require more than 16GB just yet.

Be aware though that xmp profiles won't necessarily work with your particular motherboard, so that's a bit of a gamble. Unless it's on the qualified vendor list and actually been tested there's no saying it will.