DDR5 is here – and that’s not just a milestone in terms of time. On the one hand, a new generation of DDR-SDRAM only sees its market launch every seven years, and on the other hand, the storage industry has made technologically a real quantum leap this time. This achievement is the culmination of years of collaboration between industry players and the major chipset manufacturers on the JEDEC committee, which also includes Kingston, which sets the industry standard for memory modules down to the smallest detail: from pin count and power consumption to form factors and target speeds, to name just a few. But what exactly has happened?
Superficially, compared to DDR4 nothing changed that much: The modules themselves have the same shape and have exactly as many pins as their DDR4 counterparts (288 in number). However, the notch on the modules is in a different place than before – DDR5 modules are therefore not compatible with DDR4 memory slots and vice versa.
DDR5 Less power consumption despite higher performance
The progress only becomes clear after a closer look. At 1.1 volts, the applied voltage is only 0.1 V lower, but the mainboard no longer takes over control of the power supply as it did before, but the memory module itself – which makes energy management much more efficient. Although this could increase the costs for bars, the increase remains insignificant overall, especially for desktop RAM – and on the contrary it could reduce the costs for mainboards. In summary, DDR5-RAM offers users more performance with less power consumption thanks to improved energy management.
Keyword performance: The new memory architecture has a large share in this. Among other things, the bank groups, the units on the memory that process the read and write commands, were adapted. Naturally, their work takes a certain amount of time, which is why the number of bank groups was doubled to eight for DDR5. In line with this, DIMMs now have two sub-channels of 32 bits each instead of a single channel with 64 bits. Theoretically, this would halve the maximum data transfer rate, but the so-called burst length has been doubled instead, i.e. the number of bit sequences that can be delivered as one packet. This improves the efficiency of the data bus and delivers twice the data on the bus.
In addition, both sides of the DIMM share a registering clock driver (RCD), but are controlled independently. This results in four output clocks on each side. Overall, this results in significantly more efficiency than before, which goes beyond a mere improvement in terms of access speed. A single DDR5 bar offers the advantages of an entire DDR4 dual RAM setting – and more.
Clock rate and capacities
The new DDR5 architecture also enables DRAM densities of up to 64 Gbit per single-die package – four times as much as DDR4. Or to put it another way: Capacities of 128 GB per memory block are thus possible, which results in a maximum RAM allocation of theoretically 512 GB for regular desktop PCs – plenty of space for the future. With regard to the clock frequency, according to the JEDEC specification, there is an introduction speed of 4800 up to 6400 MT/s with expected increases of 400 MT/s annually, corresponding to the introduction of new processors and chipsets. For comparison: DDR4 only brought it to a peak value of 3200 MT/s.
What’s the point – and for whom?
Numerous main memory manufacturers such as Kingston with the new gaming product line FURY Beast and the standard modules of the ValueRAM serie brought their modules onto the market in autumn and in 2022 the product range on the market will continue to diversify, for example with the introduction of new DDR5 CPUs from AMD. DDR4 will inevitably remain the definitive standard in the RAM area well into the second half of this decade – but the new technology is already interesting for numerous users. Among private users, especially gamers who now want to buy a completely new system, as well as fans of RAM-hungry games like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, who demand everything from their PCs in terms of RAM, should take more than just a look at DDR5 . Even in the professional environment, there is always a need for fast memory – streamers, photographers, filmmakers and graphic designers can tell more than just a song about it. They too should think about a change.
Images: Kingston
