New Gaming/Game Dev rig. Cant decide between DDR4 and DDR5. Is there any marjor difference here?

[ImServs]

I am upgrading and shrinking my i7-2700K and RTX 3090 into a SFF case (Dan Case C4-SFX). I am trying to decide between 64GB x2 sticks of DDR4 32GB 3600 CL18 or 64GB x2 sticks of DDR5 32GB 5600 CL36. I am using this pc for a plethora of games including AAA open worlds, competitive shooters, and MMOs. As well as UE5 game development, 3D modelling in blender, and advanced photo editing in Adobe Photoshop.

 

Is their any real advantage in my workflow to going with an Z790 board and DDR5 or would I be fine with a Z690 board and DDR4?

[Jerakl]

I can't comment on EXACTLY what you're doing.

As far as I know when it comes to ram speeds, timing does matter a lot. 
You've got a 3600 CL18 selected for DDR4, and a 5600 CL36 selected for DDR5, thus:

Spoiler

https://notkyon.moe/ram-latency.htm

So per these screenshots (which you can try yourself from the link) the DDR4 you've selected would have less latency (and as far as I know basically latency = "speed", which I could be totally wrong about, but it's how I've kinda measured overall ram performance)

If "future proofing" doesn't matter to you I personally would go DDR4.
Just because it's likely a cheaper option. Both the ram itself and the motherboard will likely be cheaper. 

However, as someone who also recently did an lga 1700 sff pc, iirc the options for a z690 mobo that supports ddr4 is actually kinda limited (Gigabyte has a  reasonably priced z690 DDR4 board I believe)

I could be completely wrong about any sort of performance difference, as I'm no expert.

[ImServs]

3 minutes ago, Jerakl said:

I can't comment on EXACTLY what you're doing.

As far as I know when it comes to ram speeds, timing does matter a lot. 
You've got a 3600 CL18 selected for DDR4, and a 5600 CL36 selected for DDR5, thus:

  Hide contents

https://notkyon.moe/ram-latency.htm

So per these screenshots (which you can try yourself from the link) the DDR4 you've selected would have less latency (and as far as I know basically latency = "speed", which I could be totally wrong about, but it's how I've kinda measured overall ram performance)

If "future proofing" doesn't matter to you I personally would go DDR4.
Just because it's likely a cheaper option. Both the ram itself and the motherboard will likely be cheaper. 

However, as someone who also recently did an lga 1700 sff pc, iirc the options for a z690 mobo that supports ddr4 is actually kinda limited (Gigabyte has a  reasonably priced z690 DDR4 board I believe)

I could be completely wrong about any sort of performance difference, as I'm no expert.

The Gigabyte board and a budget, but not budget priced, asrock board are the only ddr4 choices haha. But yeah, future proofing isnt really a problem for me, more worried about loosing any unnecessary performance and the headache of taking apart a SFF in the distant future.  Thanks for the info!

[Aaron_T]

The latency difference between DDR4 and DDR5 is going to be largely negligible for what you're going to be using the PC for the majority of the time. Buildzoid has a good explainer here: 

So for UE5 and open world games with large data assets that are going in and out of memory often, I'd personally get DDR5 for the higher sequential transfer bandwidth. But granted, the difference will be in the few percent range most of the time.

[ImServs]

2 minutes ago, Aaron_T said:

The latency difference between DDR4 and DDR5 is going to be largely negligible for what you're going to be using the PC for the majority of the time. Buildzoid has a good explainer here: 

So for UE5 and open world games with large data assets that are going in and out of memory often, I'd personally get DDR5 for the higher sequential transfer bandwidth. But granted, the difference will be in the few percent range most of the time.

Thanks for the info! Ill check the video out, but with minimal difference it may not be worth the near $200 USD price jump to DDR5 and a compatible board.

[Aaron_T]

Yeah, aside from a small reusability consideration, you're definitely and firmly in the territory of "personal preference" and what makes the most sense for your budget.

[Ebony Falcon]

Cut the last 2 off the graph because there tuned and u can see the difference for a game that scales well with ram latency and bandwidth 

 

add the last 2 on if ur going to oc but ddr5 will oc equally as well 

 

these are the numbers of what the cpu is capable of pushing, you then need to look at what gpu u have and if is capable of reaching these numbers as to how much difference it will make