Intel Alder Lake DDR5 Memory Scaling Analysis With G.Skill Trident Z5
by Gavin Bonshor on December 23, 2021 9:00 AM ESTG.Skill Trident Z5 Memory (F5-6000U3636E16G)
2x16GB of DDR5-6000 CL36
For the purposes of this article and to investigate scaling performance on Alder Lake, G.Skill supplied us with a kit of its latest Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 CL36 memory. The G.Skill Trident Z series has been its flagship model for many years, focusing on performance but blending in a premium and clean-cut aesthetic. G.Skill offers two types of its Trident Z5 memory, some without RGB LEDs such as the kit we are taking a look at today (Z5), and the Trident Z5 RGB, which includes an RGB LED light bar along the top of each memory stick.
Focusing on the non-RGB variants, the G.Skill Trident Z D5 is available in various 32 GB (2x16) configurations starting at DDR5-5600 CL36 and ranging up to DDR5-6000 CL36. G.Skill unveiled a kit of Trident Z D5 RGB DDR5-7000 CL40 kit, which is extremely fast, and when it is released, it will ultimately be one of the most, if not the most, expensive DDR5 memory kit on the market.
Looking at the design, the G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5 memory uses a 42 mm tall (at the highest point) heatsink, with G.Skill offering a two-tone contrasting matte black kit, as well as a black and metallic silver kit. The kit supplied to us by G.Skill uses two-tone matte black heatsinks. The heatsinks are constructed from aluminum, and G.Skill states that it uses a newer and more 'streamlined' design. There are quite pointy, which given previous G.Skill memory kits might have the tendency to feel too sharp when installing them.
Looking at what CPU-Z is reporting, we can see that the X.M.P 3.0 profile matches up with the advertised specifications, with this particular kit using DDR5-6000 with latency timings of 36-36-36-76. The operating voltage for the kit is 1.3 V, which is a 0.2 V bump from the JEDEC SPD rating of this kit, which is DDR5-4800 at 1.1 V.
Checking the more intricate details of the G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 memory, CPU-Z reports that the kit is using Samsung IC's, with a 1Rx8 array of 16 Gb ICs employed on each module. While CPU-Z doesn't actually report this, we reached out to G.Skill who informed us that this kit uses a single rank design.
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Spunjji - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
Not worth it yet, then. Go go DDR4!mirancar - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
hello guyscan we also test some web browser (javascript) performance? i think most people either running games or using the web browser all the time. (sadly) even alot of applications are now made with web browser engine
also the SPEC int/fp suite bench could be useful or even just geekbench 5
the gaming benchmarks also seem abit flawed, the way it was tested with the gtx 1080, would it even make a difference even if using some older hardware ? i think it would be better finding games which have a cpu bottleneck and scale well with actual differenc cpus used. can you have same performance for example with 12700k+ddr5 6000 vs 12900k+ddr5 4800 ?
Oxford Guy - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
‘What's very interesting from our testing is when we went low latency at DDR5-4800 with CL32 latencies. Tightening up the primary latencies at the same frequency netted us an additional 6.4% jump in performance, which shows there that increasing frequency isn't the only way to improve overall performance.’So that DDR-5 7000 mentioned may not be ‘extremely fast’ in the real world.
The lack of DDR-4 with low latencies at various speeds here seems to be an oversight, in terms of providing necessary context. Consider a follow-up that includes the DDR-4 data.
ruthan - Friday, December 24, 2021 - link
Nice but without DDR4 and price / performance ration is not great.Tchamber - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link
I remember when they used to make low-latency chips. My first DDR3 was for an i7 920, and I had some super, super low latency memory that was expensive, but at least it was an option. It would be nice to see them make that available.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link
It is available. DDR4 4000 CL 15 memory is a thing.Silver5urfer - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link
Skip the entire ADL tbh. If you are running X470, Z390 and up. There's no need to upgrade to this experimental platform. You pay more for single digit gains. Not worth. Skip this and Zen 4, get Zen 5 and then Intel. By that time PCIe5.0 and DDR5 will have 2 years of maturity.Wereweeb - Sunday, December 26, 2021 - link
A comment by Silver5urfer that is actually reasonable, thank you for this christmas gift.Kvaern1 - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
This just confirms what has always been true.Expensive highend RAM has no noticeable effect on most usecases.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, December 28, 2021 - link
That depends. If one is comparing JEDEC 2133 CL15 DDR4 with B-die running at 3200 CL14 on Zen there is a big performance difference in games. For example, take a look at the reddit topic 'I compared 3200Mhz ram vs 2133 in 12 games'.Going after MHz sees diminishing returns set in quickly after a certain point. With Zen 3, the optimum MHz is 3600. With Zen 2 it's probably 3200 with that low command rate of 14. Zen 1 also paid dividends via running 3200 RAM instead of slower RAM.