do i get zen 3 or wait for zen 4?

[Abzilla]

Hi! I am getting ready for my long awaited "Christmas" upgrade! But i've heard that zen 4 will support DDR5 ram which is meant to be 2x faster than DDR4. I was considering on getting around 32gb of ddr4 ram at 3600Mhz. Im upgrading from an i7 4790 (Non K) with 16gb of ddr3 ram at 1600Mhz. I fear that I wont be upgrading for a long time after and will be missing out on DDR5 performance, however, I would expect 32gb of DDR5 ram to be insanely expensive so is it worth myself upgrading now or waiting for zen 4 and DDR5 ram?

[Guest]

No one call tell you whether it's worth waiting or not.

If your current computer isn't keeping up with what you're doing, then upgrade.

Be careful of "well the next thing is just around the corner" because you'll be waiting forever.

 

[TVwazhere]

DDR5 will be expensive at launch for at least a year, if DDR4 prices are anything to go off. 

 

I wouldn't base my decision on RAM speeds though. 4790K's used DDR3 and 6700k used DDR4 and there wasnt a huge performance gap between the two. 

[.Apex.]

2 minutes ago, Abzilla said:

Hi! I am getting ready for my long awaited "Christmas" upgrade! But i've heard that zen 4 will support DDR5 ram which is meant to be 2x faster than DDR4. I was considering on getting around 32gb of ddr4 ram at 3600Mhz. Im upgrading from an i7 4790 (Non K) with 16gb of ddr3 ram at 1600Mhz. I fear that I wont be upgrading for a long time after and will be missing out on DDR5 performance, however, I would expect 32gb of DDR5 ram to be insanely expensive so is it worth myself upgrading now or waiting for zen 4 and DDR5 ram?

There are DDR4 sticks that reach 5000Mhz and those were not found to see any performance advantages over general speed DDR4 RAM (ie 3200), though there might be an uplift in very specific applications that rely on memory speed but otherwise I don't expect DDR5 to completely change the performance of the CPUs

 

https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/ryan-martin/patriot-viper-steel-ddr4-4400mhz-16gb-2x8gb-memory-review/2/

4400Mhz tested on a 9900K since Ryzen has limitation in the Infinity Fabric

[.Apex.]

4 minutes ago, Syn. said:

4400Mhz tested on a 9900K since Ryzen has limitation in the Infinity Fabric

There are many more of those benchmarks which is why it was never recommended to overspend on RAM for Intel, and AMD will get the same treatment going forward since they mostly mitigated their latency issues between cores that rely on Memory latency and speed by combining the cache of their CCXs

[Abzilla]

Thanks all for the near instant replies!

2 minutes ago, Den-Fi said:

"well the next thing is just around the corner" because you'll be waiting forever.

I have had this thought in the back of my mind but haven't applied it to the situation, this is actually a great point, especially considering how quick technology is advancing now.

 

4 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

unless you really like having a 4790 for another two years.

Im good thanks!  

 

3 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

4790K's used DDR3 and 6700k used DDR4 and there wasnt a huge performance gap between the two. 

I wasn't aware of that, I though that would've been some decent performance gains. Im happy that i'm wrong then!

2 minutes ago, Syn. said:

There are DDR4 sticks that reach 5000Mhz and those were not found to see any performance advantages over general speed DDR4 RAM

Thats quite surprising, perhaps it could be linked to CPUs not being optimised for 5000Mhz as you do hear 3600Mhz is the "sweet spot" for ryzen CPUs

1 minute ago, Syn. said:

hat rely on Memory latency and speed by combining the cache of their CCXs

You went from English to Computer scientist real quick

[Abzilla]

Thank you all for your time and knowledge to help me with this! I appreciate it and I guess i'm going to be part of team Ryzen now!

[Delicieuxz]

11 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

DDR5 will be expensive at launch for at least a year, if DDR4 prices are anything to go off. 

 

I wouldn't base my decision on RAM speeds though. 4790K's used DDR3 and 6700k used DDR4 and there wasnt a huge performance gap between the two. 

How did the price of 16 GB of DDR3 compare to 16 GB of DDR4 on DDR4's release?

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, Abzilla said:

Thats quite surprising, perhaps it could be linked to CPUs not being optimised for 5000Mhz as you do hear 3600Mhz is the "sweet spot" for ryzen CPUs

3600Mhz was the sweet spot for Ryzen because it was synced 1:1 with the Infinity Fabric (IF), going above 3600Mhz RAM speed would lower the frequency of the IF and would result in lower performance, that's why you can't rely on the benchmarks for higher memory speed on Ryzen, but you can on Intel and it doesn't offer any performance improvements, but I'll put it in simpler terms that Zen 3 would be much closer to Intel and therefor memory speed would not affect it as much

[Abzilla]

1 minute ago, Syn. said:

600Mhz was the sweet spot for Ryzen

"was"?

[Delicieuxz]

1 minute ago, Syn. said:

3600Mhz was the sweet spot for Ryzen because it was synced 1:1 with the Infinity Fabric (IF), going above 3600Mhz RAM speed would lower the frequency of the IF and would result in lower performance, that's why you can't rely on the benchmarks for higher memory speed on Ryzen, but you can on Intel and it doesn't offer any performance improvements, but I'll put it in simpler terms that Zen 3 would be much closer to Intel and therefor memory speed would not affect it as much

Do you think 4000 Mhz RAM would result in a slowdown with Zen 3?

[.Apex.]

Just now, Abzilla said:

"was"?

Still is for Zen 2, but we don't know exactly how the Infinity Fabric would behave on Zen 3

[Abzilla]

Just now, Syn. said:

Still is for Zen 2, but we don't know exactly how the Infinity Fabric would behave on Zen 3

Ah right fair enough, thanks for the clarification. 

[dilpickle]

I'm waiting for Zen 6

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

Do you think 4000 Mhz RAM would result in a slowdown with Zen 3?

Same as my answer above, if the Infinity Fabric on Zen 3 can be synced with 4000Mhz RAM then it would not lower performance, depending if the memory timings are appropriate for the speed, but I don't think it would increase performance by any considerable amount either

[boggy77]

32 minutes ago, Abzilla said:

32gb of ddr4 ram at 3600Mhz

question is, do you really need 32gb of ram?

are you only gaming (if yes, 16gb are enough) or are you doing something else that uses more ram (like 4k video editing)?

[Delicieuxz]

3 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

question is, do you really need 32gb of ram?

are you only gaming (if yes, 16gb are enough) or are you doing something else that uses more ram (like 4k video editing)?

If you keep a web browser open for a long time have lots of browser tabs running in the background while performance gaming, then 16 GB is too little. The next step up is 32 GB.

 

And the amount of RAM put into a new system shouldn't just be sufficient for the present day, but for at least the next few years to come. If it's possible to max-out 16 GB of RAM now, then it will be very limiting in another couple of years.

[Abzilla]

17 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

question is, do you really need 32gb of ram?

are you only gaming (if yes, 16gb are enough) or are you doing something else that uses more ram (like 4k video editing)?

I will be gaming, but i disagree with 16gb being enough for gaming. Especially with how the industry is moving forward now. Finally, 32gb isn't considered "overkill" anymore and is almost the new upcoming standard IMO.

 

11 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

And the amount of RAM put into a new system shouldn't just be sufficient for the present day, but for at least the next few years to come. If it's possible to max-out 16 GB of RAM now, then it will be very limiting in another couple of years.

As Delicieuxz said.

[TVwazhere]

1 hour ago, Delicieuxz said:

How did the price of 16 GB of DDR3 compare to 16 GB of DDR4 on DDR4's release?

Back in the day of DDR3 (2014) I paid....

Excuse me?

$159???

Definitely dont remember it being that high but this is the exact invoice.... Might have bene cause it was 1866 and not 1333 or 1600

 

Anyways, DDR3 was generally cheaper than DDR4 especially at launch , but got down to similar pricing within the next year (this shows 8gb not 16 but it give a better indication). Since over 5 years ago is a long time for anyone to recall, if you remember how ridiculously expensive it was in 2018, that was about retail launch price for the average DDR4 kit according to GN and PCPP.

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/industry/3212-ram-price-investigation-ddr4-same-price-as-initial-launch

[Delicieuxz]

22 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Back in the day of DDR3 (2014) I paid....

Excuse me?

$159???

Definitely dont remember it being that high but this is the exact invoice.... Might have bene cause it was 1866 and not 1333 or 1600

 

Anyways, DDR3 was generally cheaper than DDR4 especially at launch , but got down to similar pricing within the next year (this shows 8gb not 16 but it give a better indication). Since over 5 years ago is a long time for anyone to recall, if you remember how ridiculously expensive it was in 2018, that was about retail launch price for the average DDR4 kit according to GN and PCPP.

 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/industry/3212-ram-price-investigation-ddr4-same-price-as-initial-launch

 

The price you paid looks about right. According to the Gamers Nexus charts, 8 GB of DDR3-1600 was $80 at the start of October 2014, while 8 GB of DDR4-2133 was $135.

 

Right now, looking at Amazon, DDR4-3200 is around $55 - $60 for 16 GB. As a wild guess, DDR5 might be $80 per 16 GB when it releases.