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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bananaforscale - Thursday, December 30, 2021 - link
Command rate of 14? Shirley you mean latency of 14.Oxford Guy - Saturday, January 1, 2022 - link
Yes. Posting with the flu leads to mistakes.Kvaern1 - Sunday, January 9, 2022 - link
I wouldn't call DDR4 3200/3600 expensive highend RAM. 3200 wasn't even expensive when I put it in my old Skylake in early 2016. DDR5 OTOH currently cost about twice as much as DDR4 for basically no gains outside of massively parallel computing realms.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 12, 2022 - link
It depends upon whether it’s top-grade B die or not. 3600–14 can be quite pricy.throAU - Thursday, December 30, 2021 - link
uh.... why benchmarking game performance at 4k with a GTX1080 from ... 2016?surely to benchmark CPU vs. memory performance with DDR5 you'd want a relevant GPU to pair with it? one that isn't being strangled at 4k, etc.
throAU - Thursday, December 30, 2021 - link
Saw an earlier comment from Ian - No GPUs available.Well then, I guess don't run GPU limited benchmarks as part of the memory scaling analysis. If you can't run the numbers legitimately, then don't run them. Have to say this is just not up to the usual anandtech high standard we've come to expect over the past 2 decades.
Oxford Guy - Sunday, January 2, 2022 - link
AMD and Nvidia are selling plenty of video cards for high prices that have less performance than a 1080. Cards with less performance than a 1080 and cards with equivalent performance continue to be brought to market.People have been conditioned to assume the only valid tests involve the most expensive cutting-edge consumer hardware because that hardware is typically provided by companies to try to get sales. I remember when this place had chart data points featuring triple SLI GTX setups with the top Nvidia cards of time. Who could afford that and who could tolerate the noise and heat? Other sites have routinely done GPU tests with Intel CPUs that were really expensive. They say it's to eliminate bottlenecks but when the only data involves luxury hardware it can be less informative to the majority of buyers who aren't going to spend that kind of money. The same goes for using a video card like a Titan instead of one at a reasonable price point. Not only were cards in that line overpriced, they had a short market lifespan as I recall. Buying one was more about bragging rights than value for one's money.
If the video card being used were a GTX 580 or something else that's totally irrelevant to contemporary gaming then you could call the data illegitimate legitimately. What it actually is is legitimate data that's not as complete as you'd like. I would particularly like to see DDR-4 performance in any article's charts about DDR-5's performance. Not having that doesn't make the data invalid, just less convenient.
Many would be happy to have 1080-level performance given the current situation. Extremetech was actually recommending that people look at the ancient 290X due to the GPU pricing situation.
Vega cards, which weren't so impressive (especially in performance-per-watt but also in performance-per-decibel) when they were new are now in their second round of mining-induced gouging. The pricing for those used is preposterous and yet that's the situation we're in.
Unless you have quite a bit of disposable income for gaming you're unlikely to have a 3080/3090 now or in the near future. It may be that testing with a 3090 would be more irrelevant than with a 1080 simply due to the smallness of the percentage of those who will own a card with that performance in the near future and present.
TheinsanegamerN - Monday, January 3, 2022 - link
"People have been conditioned to assume the only valid tests involve the most expensive cutting-edge consumer hardware"People are smart enough to use their brains, and realize that to test scaling of a component you must remove every possible bottleneck not related to said component. running a GPU limited test on a memory scaling benchmark is utterly pointless.
"AMD and Nvidia are selling plenty of video cards for high prices that have less performance than a 1080"
Intel sells lots of CPUs that are slower then a 12900k. Shoudl they have used a pentium G6400 for these tests? How about 2133 mhz DDR4?
See, sales nubers are not relevant to scaling tests. We are concerned with how well a certian part scales, not how well it sells. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, January 4, 2022 - link
'See, sales nubers are not relevant to scaling tests.'If the tests don't match the product usage the tests aren't relevant.
Tom Sunday - Tuesday, January 4, 2022 - link
All said and done I am still running with DDR3 memory on my used and hobbled together DELL XPS 730X from 2008. If I had the money now and having a meaningful job, I would most certainly buy DDR5 and an Alder Lake set-up to be happy