No one seems to be interested all that much in DDR5 RAM — at least not for gaming. It has stabilized price-wise, but it’s still way too expensive for most people and, frankly, the performance benefits it provides aren’t nearly as game-changing as some companies would want you to believe.
Here’s the thing: DDR5 can improve your frame rates, but it is by no means as tremendous a boost as one would hope for. It also depends on the game, too. In some titles, you can expect up to a 10/15% increase in performance. In others, it’s more like 5%.
That’s… really not something worth getting excited about. A fast kit of DDR4 RAM is still the better option from a price-to-performance standpoint and that, by the looks of it, isn’t going to change any time soon.
If you have a bit of money to spare, you’d be better off investing it in a more powerful graphics card or, say, a top-of-the-line processor as those upgrades would provide a much bigger (and more noticeable) performance uplift.
This might change in a few year’s time once it becomes a bit more ubiquitous, but it feels like we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. Once you pair a beastly GPU with one of Intel or AMD’s latest processors, you’ll easily be able to reach incredibly high frame rates with maxed out settings; the RAM itself isn’t going to be a bottleneck, as long as you have 16GB of memory running in dual-channel.
Now sure, today’s latest and greatest titles have gotten a lot more demanding, but 16GB still feels like the “sweet spot” — at least for most people.
To see how DDR4 stacks up to DDR5 FPS-wise, make sure to watch the following video:
It does make a difference, but it’s just not something worth upgrading both your motherboard and your existing memory for. If you’re building a brand new rig, however, it might be worth the investment. DDR5 RAM is by no means as obscenely priced as it was just a few months ago, so it’s a slightly more sensible purchase at the time of this writing.
That being said, top-tier DDR4 kits can outperform entry-level DDR5 ones, so it’s really not black and white. It all depends on the implementation, the operating frequency, whether it’s overclocked or not and, equally as important, latency.
Source: Hardware Canucks
DDR5 RAM for Gaming — Not Worth It
It took a while before DDR4 stabilized in both price and performance-per-dollar and, by the looks of it, the same is happening with DDR5 as well. It does offer a respectable uplift in performance overall, but its sheer potential still isn’t being fully utilized, and that’s true for both Intel systems as much as it is for AMD ones.
If it’s just gaming you’re interested in, there’s really no use in upgrading to DDR5. The fact that you have to swap out your motherboard as well only further complicates things and adds to the overall cost and investment.
If you’re building a new PC, then it might be an avenue worth exploring, but only if you can snag a good deal and if you’re wholly interested in futureproofing yourself — which, by the way, is always a wise decision (budget permitting).
For more information on DDR5 and the way it scales performance-wise, make sure to watch the following video from Linus Tech Tips: