Why are all reviewers treating DDR 5 as DDR 4?

[The Spark]

Prior to buying my new system I of course checked various reviews on the various components, it was my first AMD system with a 7800x3d. Things have gone well, the system is rock solid and I got good post times, around 7 seconds with memory training on. I opted to run my RAM in EXPO 1 at 5600 instead of 6000 to avoid stability issues. Wasn´t planning on doing any major overclocking and happy with how things turned out.

 

Did a few benchies which places my CPU as average among all other 7800x3d´s, happy with that. I can concentrate on gaming which I have done for the past few days with no glitches.

 

I made a mistake though, at least I thought I did. I ordered 32 GB of RAM, I thought I had pressed the right buttons but must have messed up as my DDR 5 RAM came as a single stick, not two and that meant ... "no dual channel".

 

Well, I checked on performance loss and found out that DDR 5 runs in dual channel natively, all of the benchmarks I saw (ddr 5 single vs two sticks) didn´t show much of a difference except for the 1% lows, so I am sticking with the single stick for now.

 

What baffles me is that no one in all the reviews I saw about the different components never bothered to mention this, they all treat DDR 5 as DDR 4 and only show systems running with 2 sticks ... which I guess amounts to quad channel? ... not sure. Not a single review touched upon the possibility of just running with a single stick of RAM, I mean .. I can always get another 32 GB stick.

[Tan3l6]

1 DDR5 stick runs 2x32 bit dual channel.

2 DDR4 sticks run 2x64 bit dual channel.

 

At least thats what I've learned...

[filpo]

3 minutes ago, The Spark said:

What baffles me is that no one in all the reviews I saw about the different components never bothered to mention this, they all treat DDR 5 as DDR 4 and only show systems running with 2 sticks ... which I guess amounts to quad channel?

LTT explained it in their first vid hands on with DDR5 

go from 6:25 till 7:50 

 

[The Spark]

2 minutes ago, filpo said:

LTT explained it in their first vid hands on with DDR5 

 

 

That doesn´t really equate with the benchmarks I have seen thus far with 1 stick vs 2 sticks. DDR 4 has huge benefits in dual channel vs single channel, DDR 5 benchmarks (from what I have seen) don´t warrant a "sure 2 stick recommendation".

 

On top of that the DDR 5 memory controllers seem to be very finnicky the more modules you add to the mix, so that leaves someone with a very tight budget to just buy a single 16 gb DDR memory module with the thought of upgrading at a later as a viable option.

 

Thank you for the link, it´s the only time I have seen that mentioned and it still baffles me because it´s actually an important detail.

[Tan3l6]

Well benchmarks still favor 2 sticks of DDR5: 

 

[The Spark]

16 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Well benchmarks still favor 2 sticks of DDR5: 

 

 

 

Thank you, I guess the benchmarks and recommendations I watched were somewhat different.

 

https://bytexd.com/hardware/ddr5-dual-channel-or-single-channel/

 

*The Dual Channel DDR5 RAM is a sure-shot way to enhance your computer’s performance, provided you have a specific need. Only some applications will harness the benefits a Dual Channel DDR5 offers. For the time being, gaming isn’t one of them.

 

 

.. and one of the videos I watched:

 

[porina]

46 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

1 DDR5 stick runs 2x32 bit dual channel.

2 DDR4 sticks run 2x64 bit dual channel.

This, but I'd rearrange it as follows:

1 DDR5 stick is 2x32-bit channels

1 DDR4 stick is 1x64-bit channel

 

When DDR5 was new everyone did talk about it having twice as many but half as wide channels, for no effective change in peak bandwidth per transfer. It was also an open question at the time how tech media was going to describe this when talking about DDR4 and DDR5. It seems the industry has chosen to follow the DDR4-like path of one DDR5 module would make one channel, not two. You still want to run 2 sticks in consumer tier systems to maximise bandwidth.

 

AMD does it (7950X3D):

 

Intel does it (13900k):

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

It seems the industry has chosen to follow the DDR4-like path of one DDR5 module would make one channel, not two. You still want to run 2 sticks in consumer tier systems to maximise bandwidth.

i think the train of thought here is that DDR5 cuts the channel width in half to be less touchy with timings on that many channels on such a high speed. one stick is still 64 bits worth of channels, it's just cut in two halves "under the hood" to make managing the bus easier. (think it this way: carrying two pieces of 10ft long lumber is easier than carrying one piece of 20ft long lumber.. but at the core it's the same lumber)

[porina]

11 minutes ago, manikyath said:

(think it this way: carrying two pieces of 10ft long lumber is easier than carrying one piece of 20ft long lumber.. but at the core it's the same lumber)

It is the same, but yet it isn't, as you now have twice as many pieces to deal with.

 

I recall some early press settled on describing the bit-width to avoid channel confusion. Maybe we needed to re-think what we call a channel so the current usage is correct. Or it is still technically wrong, but no one cares. A bit like we had a push in recent years to correct the long standing MHz mayhem when talking about ram speeds. Anyway, not my call. Industry has done what it does.

[manikyath]

16 minutes ago, porina said:

It is the same, but yet it isn't, as you now have twice as many pieces to deal with.

 

I recall some early press settled on describing the bit-width to avoid channel confusion. Maybe we needed to re-think what we call a channel so the current usage is correct. Or it is still technically wrong, but no one cares. A bit like we had a push in recent years to correct the long standing MHz mayhem when talking about ram speeds. Anyway, not my call. Industry has done what it does.

"while technically wrong, it is the easiest for people not as tech savvy to understand."