alder lake ddr5 RAM speeds

[dave28]

Does anyone know what DDR5 RAM speeds are safe to use daily for an i5-12600K.

As in not going to damage the lifespan of the CPU in any way.

I tried looking this up but found a confusing mess of information.

My RAM kits XMP profile is 6600mhz C32 and is 1.4v i think.

I ran it fine with a 13700K but have just switched to the 12600K.

 

[JollyJamma]

Why would you be worried about shortening the lifespan of one CPU with a faster kit of memory over another CPU?

The memory controller on 13th gen is stronger than 12th gen but that's about the only difference that I'm aware of.

I wouldn't worry about memory controller degradation too much unless you're pushing very high volts (north of 1.5v) and you could always start at 1.4v and then reduce the voltage until you hit instability.

A quick look suggests keeping DDR5 below 1.4v but there's nothing to suggest that that would vary based on generation of CPU.

 

[dave28]

Why would you be worried about shortening the lifespan of one CPU with a faster kit of memory over another CPU?

The memory controller on 13th gen is stronger than 12th gen but that's about the only difference that I'm aware of.

I wouldn't worry about memory controller degradation too much unless you're pushing very high volts (north of 1.5v) and you could always start at 1.4v and then reduce the voltage until you hit instability.

A quick look suggests keeping DDR5 below 1.4v but there's nothing to suggest that that would vary based on generation of CPU.

The 12th gen was the first intel CPUs to support DDR5 so i imagined that the memory controller may be very weak or something and was worried that i was pushing it well beyond what it was designed for but i honestly dont.

RAM has always baffled me, i find it so confusing and intel only say that it supports 4800mhz which is about as useful info to the consumer as saying a car has wheels.

 

[JollyJamma]

The 12th gen was the first intel CPUs to support DDR5 so i imagined that the memory controller may be very weak or something and was worried that i was pushing it well beyond what it was designed for but i honestly dont.

RAM has always baffled me, i find it so confusing and intel only say that it supports 4800mhz which is about as useful info to the consumer as saying a car has wheels.

Understandable. RAM overclocking is a dark art that can be very frustrating.

4800 MT/s is the JDEC speed supported out of the box with safe timings. Anything higher with lower timings is overclocking (or using a higher JDEC speed e.g., 5600 MT/s).

Using XMP profiles is actually overclocking and technically voids your CPU warranty.

I don't have much DDR5 knowledge but my understanding it that 7000 MT/s is a lot for most CPUs to achieve (in medium capacities and especially in higher capacities) but 6600 MT/s is far easier (timings can be a factor too).

There are people pushing DDR5 to 10 000 MT/s and beyond and at those speeds and voltages I'd expect severe memory controller degradation.

Best thing to do is keep the RAM at 6600 MT/s with lower timings and then back the voltage off slowly (1.4v to 1.395v to 1.390v to 1.385v etc) if you're really worried.

Watch this and see if it helps (Buildzoid has very good insights into all types of RAM overclocking but tends to not have his videos in a very orderly method as he rambles).

 

[JollyJamma]

Also, DDR speeds are expressed in MT/s as per this extract from Wikipedia

The interface uses double pumping (transferring data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal) to double data bus bandwidth without a corresponding increase in clock frequency. One advantage of keeping the clock frequency low is that it reduces the signal integrity requirements on the circuit board connecting the memory to the controller. The name "double data rate" refers to the fact that a DDR SDRAM with a certain clock frequency achieves nearly twice the bandwidth of a SDR SDRAM running at the same clock frequency, due to this double pumping.

ie 6600 MT/s RAM is 3300 Mhz and should not be expressed as 6600 Mhz. SDR would be expressed as 400 mhz RAM as it's a 1 signal per clock cycle at the given frequency.

 

[JollyJamma]

This is a good guide by the looks of things. Explains things in a nice way. Don't worry if you don't understand all of it and find it a lot to take in, it is.

RAM is incredibly complicated given all the subtimings and combinations of timings and speed.

DDR5 Overclocking Guide: Make it Faster - Overclockers

Hoping to extract the most performance from your DDR5-based system? Check out this DDR5 overclocking guide to help tune your memory!

www.overclockers.com

 

[Tetras]

My RAM kits XMP profile is 6600mhz C32 and is 1.4v i think.

I ran it fine with a 13700K but have just switched to the 12600K.

The cpus are also designed for DDR4 and most gaming/xmp kits are 1.35v, so I'd be surprised if there was any noticeable deg @ 1.4v. If you're worried, 5600 kits are usually 1.25v, so if you run at this speed/volts you won't lose much performance at higher resolutions and should easily be in a long-term safe zone. Realistically I don't think any enthusiast running high speed memory will keep their cpu long enough to need to care.