What DDR5 to buy December 2023 

*TIMESTAMPS* 0:00 - 7:49 *Intro rambling and important info* (TL;DR only buy 2 sticks of DDR5) 7:49 *2x16GB kits* 7:52 Overclocking for the least money 9:54 Cheapest fast XMP with Hynix 16:29 Fastest 6000MT/s bin 19:26 Fastest XMP that every 13th & 14th Gen CPU can run 20:43 Fastest kit BZ would buy unless you're feeling lucky 31:18 *2x24GB kits* 35:13 Best affordable kit 36:17 Good kit for Intel 38:21 *2x32GB kits* 39:18 Cost-effective capacity 52:35 *4 stick configurations AKA the stupid stuff* 1:05:56 *RECAP!!!* *Important stuff rambled* 9:54 Hynix M-die vs A-die 14:05 DDR5 speeds on AMD 17:19 AMD vs Intel 18:30 Hynix A-die on Intel 23:48 7200MT/s+ & silicon lottery on CPUs 31:33 2x24GB M-die vs 2x16GB A-die 34:17 Memory controller location... 43:29 BEWARE of Corsair! They do "speedy" bins with loose timings that might include Micron chips *_For the full BZ experience, watch the whole video_*

If you want to look like you have 4 sticks get the corsair or Gskill dummy sticks with LED and no data pins.

Thank you, I find these sorts of videos really really helpful and much appreciated!

Keep up the content. I'm working in IT and love these educational videos! Thank you!

Listen to this guy. He's awesome and straight forward. I've done what he has since I was a kid but I still come here and learn more from your videos. Thanks for these.

I just finished my build with the three month old buying guide so i know this guide will help some one else love this kind of long content thank you oh and i watch this in full multiple times makes buying stuff not confusing

Thanks dude! Super helpful

Thanks for the info

underrated video. needs more likes. very helpful. you saved me from getting ram which will underperform.

I learned the hard way, that 4x 16GB is only way to get insane and hate your setup and blame your motherboard, CPU or your CPU's IMC that those are trash. I did that mistake and bought 4x 16 GB Apacer 6400 MT/s CL32 kit (It had SK Hynix chips) and guess what it was result. It was tragedy since day zero. While I was able to run that kit on 5600 MT/s and timings from XMP profile 2 I was never able to fully stabilise the system above 4000 MT/s in OCCT and Prime95, I was also forced to shovel much more voltage into VDDIO and VSoC, last nail into coffin was UEFI update which rendered anything above 4000 MT/s unstable even in memtest86 so I gave up. I purchased G Skill Trident Z5 2x32 GB 6000 MT/s CL30 kit and getting whole system stable was piece of cake, just selecting DOCP II profile and making sure that UCLK is equal to MCLK. I was able to undervolt VDDIO to 1.100V (UEFI shows 1.128V as actual value) and VSoC to 1.155V (local reading 1.445V) and on 7950X I can pass any OCCT or Prime95 test you can think of. TL/DR my current undervolt profile: CPU: 7950X - Curve optimiser = -15 all cores - Vcore offset = -0.040 - PPT/TDC/EDC = 250/200/240 - VSoC = 1.155 V - VDDIO = 1.100 V RAM: G-Skill 64 GB 6000 MT/s CL30 - DOCP II preset - UCLK = MCLK (by default my mobo sets 0.5 * MCLK)

This is video is a MASTERPIECE ON RAM❤❤❤ Thanks so much for this invaluable information.❤❤❤

Thank you so much for your videos bz! Really good info about which ram to choose. Previous one about DDR5 RAM make me to choose right one sticks. So I'm now running perfectly fine 7200 cl34-42-42-84 1.45 v patriot viper venom on asus z790 TUF and 13700k. At first I was trying to find team group ones, coz they have lower heatsink than patriot, and didn't find in local online shops, so now I'm happy with the patriot. 2000x(cl34):7200=9.4ns🎉. And for 7000xmp, that I will try later 2000x(cl32):7000=9.1ns.

Went with a set of kingston set KF560C32RSK2-96 (6000MT/s 32-38-38 1.35V) which is m-die hynix on a 7900x and asus prime x670e motherboard. Just wanted to report that I tried your " Low effort Single rank Hynix 16Gb A/M-die timings for Ryzen 7000" and it worked flawlessly without any problems so they are valid for duall rank dimms also(at least for mine). Would appreciate if you updated the fields that refered to dual ram-> tWRWRSD and tRDRDSD: AUTO (only relevant for dual rank)

Picking up 7800X3D today!!! I’m pretty excited

no way I procrastinated long enough for buildzoid to release 3 of these videos >_

I have a 7800X3D with a 4070ti and a MSI b650 edge wifi motherboard. I want ram with cl 30 and 6000mhz minimum. I currently bought the G Skill z5 neo I think it has pretty good RGB and stats. Also, I really love the look of the Corsair dominator ram and I’ve heard you can get “dummy” kits to fill the other two ram slots? That would be ideal.

Youre the best for making content like this! Is there a Mobo roundup, or did i miss it?

For 2x48 GB, I recently got the Corsair 6000 CL30 kit shown at 47:30 and have it running with a 7800X3D on a MSI X670E Carbon. It does take about a minute to boot every time but I haven’t had any issues with it so far, and it will be nice to not worry about running out of memory for a while lol

I got a 4x32 setup at work and it was a pain getting it stable at a measly 5200 MT/s on a 13900K. The kit was rated for 5600.

This is really informing video to watch. Help me to choose at pricepoints or performance. Before i wrote-> I think i bougt DDR2 OCZ 800mhz or something, maybe a bit higher but then it was just mhz. Got it becouse it have a heatpipe on both sticks. I wont regret a buy. It was ~300€ for 2 sticks. I have nice time with my Q6600@4ghz, "downclocked" to 3,8 and that was how i played 9 years until PSU blow up and it was enought. Theres 1 between, got some components like haf 700 evo and PSU from seasonic wich i know can last( taking few months to choose what i buy, waterstuff and so on...)

35:20 2x24GB 6400 CL32 is actually very doable on AM5 with the latest AGESA. I don’t think anyone needs to down clock for them to work. That’s why G.Skill released a 2x24GB 6400 CL32 EXPO kit.

I got a 4x32 Kingston KF556C40BBK2-64 (2 set), i.e. 128 Gb total. They are on SK Hynix A-die chips, works fine @ 5600 with XMP on ASUS Prime Z790-P and i9-13900K (boxed). All tests done - Karhu, y-cruncher, memtest86 (8 hours for 4 pass), and others. Perfect stability at all.

The most annoying thing about ddr5 stability imo is that the memory can be unstable but rarely causes crashes or bluescreens. You basically have to be at broken levels of stability to see obvious problems. Meanwhile something that might appear stable but isn't will likely just cause some performance degradation. The only way to know for sure is to run VT3 overnight, which I really think anyone who runs 6800 or higher should do.

Went from a 2*16g 6000 c30 team group kit to the 2*24g 6400 c32 gskill z5 neo kit, runs without issue with 7800x3d on msi b650 edge so far. Was thinking about the 2*32g 6400 c32 kit but that was rated for 1.4v and I'm worried after the CPU burned thing and mem voltage got limited at 1.35v. Btw, didn't notice much performance diff in game after the upgrade lol.

Hey buildzoid, do you have any comment on running EXPO ram on a Intel platform?

My experience working with DDR5 for the first time, and limited overclocking experience, I've been worried about how easy overclocking memory has been for me so far. I have a G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo 32GB 6000CL30 kit in an MSI MPG X670E Carbon with a 7800X3D. I lowed the SoC voltage to 1.25 after EXPO set it to 1.3. I've set a -30 all core CO offset (-35 crashes the second Prime95 starts). I've set the memory frequency to 3200MHz. I'm currently running through Prime95 and Linpack to stress test after bumping tRAS down to 92. I think the mistake I'm making is not comparing performance, but I kinda figured improvements would be irrelevant for my daily use activities. I'm going back over past AHO videos to learn how to do stability testing better. Thus far, straying too far in messing with overclocks has led to instant crashes under load or no boot. Messing with the memory hasn't caused any obvious issues which is making me really paranoid. I'm open to suggestions for what more I can do to this system to prove it's unstable or losing performance.

Thank you.

Small tip for getting Hynix A-/M-die sticks: check for AMD EXPO self certification reports by the manufacturer. Kingston & G.Skill are excellent at those. My personal experience with 128 GB RAM on AM5: Two Kingston KF560C36BBEK2-64 kits (4 sticks) on an Aorus B650E Master with a R9-7950X3D run DDR5-5600 (2nd XMP/EXPO profile) out of the box. Drawback is that you have to retrain memory each boot, which takes 147 seconds into Win 10 Pro. After some fiddling with timings, I nowadays run 28-36-28-30 (1.435V)* with tight sub-timings. Stress testing took me about two weeks and I had to strap a 80mm Noctua fan for the memory sticks onto the back of my RTX 4090 for reliable operation. Works great for my Unreal Engine 5 & DaVinci Resolve virtual production stuff. 😇😋 *edit: typo & more info

yay , ddr5 buying guide lets go

Thanks for your super video as always, always interesting to watch and learn from it. However, I have a question about the DDR5 RAM modules vs supported memory from the motherboard manufacturer. From chapter 31:18 2x24GB kits you mentioned G.Skill Ripjaws DDR5 RAM modules, but the motherboard "ASUS ProArt Z790-CREATOR" doesn't support it for the Intel 14th gen CPU. What should I do? Stick to the supported memory modules from the list on the Asus website? In combination with 14900K CPU.

love you man

bought samsung b-die corsair ddr6000 cl36. z790 aorus elite ax, 13600k. used buildzoid guides to "tighten" timings, cl 30 etc primaries and also some important secondary timings. doesn't like being clocked higher now. i have aida values of 62ns latency and 90Gb/s read and write. 1T didn't work. quite happy though. y cruncher hasn't complained so far, will have to run a few more longer tests. last ram i modified was ddr2 way back. crazy how much has changed and how many more options are now exposed to users.

Hey Buildzoid, great video, thank you. Between a Hynix kit of 2x32 or the corsair vengeance 2x48 6600 c32 gb that you recommend which one would your choose? Would it work at 6800 c32 with your settings that you shared for the Hardware unboxed video? They run perfect with 2x16 Hynix m Kingston kit with a 13700 at 6800 c32. Or is better to try 6600 c32 with same timings ? Happy New Year to you and all of the fellow hobbyists. Just for reference Only using the pc for gaming simulators like msfs , iracing.MB gigabyte gaming x z790, 4090.

Thank you for answering my question on if running 4 sticks of 8gb for tighter timings on DDR5 5600 would work. I wanted to know because according to G Skill 5600 is as fast as they have checked my motherboard would go.

Hey Buildzoid, great video! Quick question for you: I recently ordered the G.SKILL 24GB x 2 6400MT/s CL32 kit. Would you expect that your old "easy memory timings for Hynix..." speed / timings would still work for these 24bit chips? I'm going to try Expo on my 7800x3d, but not expecting it to work at that speed.

I have a 7600X with a ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E with Gskill Trident F5-6400J3239G16GX2-TZ5RS 2x16GB DDR5 RAM at 6400 MHz CL32 and it's been rock solid on it's DOCP I profile (DOCP II looks the same to me in the UEFI) since I bought it in September. I haven't tuned it manually, I just run it in the default DOCP I profile. PBO Enhancement is enabled with the 80C target (90C traget doesn't increase my CPU's clockspeed, just increases the CPU temps by like 3C for no benefit).

I'm running the T-create 2x24 7200 kit at 8400 CL 38 1.47VDD/VDDQ on a 14900k/Apex Encore setup. Karhu,TM5 and Y-cruncher stable. The good thing about the 2x24 7200 kit's is they are pretty much all the same kit from 7200 on up and are the new Hynix M-die.

I got the 4x32 Corsair dimms you looked at at Black Friday for like $270. I'm currently running at 5200. Wouldn't boot with EXPO so had to judt manually set it.

I could only get 6000 to work but not really stable with 2x48(x2) trident zs.. they are rated for 6400cl32, but even at 5600 I still had issues with random crashes and other instability. 4800 was the fastest that was actually stable. I switched to just the 2x48 6400xmp tweaked profile and is working much better for now. Going to try again soon once I get my other build up and running. This was all before watching this video and a couple others Use case for these are mostly workstations for 3d cad and other stuff, gaming a bonus. Had a threadripper build in cart and decided to go with 2 workstations for the price of the one.. still miles ahead of what I had before either way. Originally I was going for 2x systems with 96gb, but I wanted to see if I could overcome the stability issues I've heard of with DDR5.. Wish me luck, definitely more confident I can get more stability out of my 2 kits since I've gotten a little more familiar with the 14th gen cpu.. my first high end intel build in 15 years and I get to keep it!

i got the t create expert ddr5-6000 cl30-36-36-76 for 67.49 about a week ago, but haven't been able to overclock it using the voltages and timings on the am5 platform (b650m aorus elite ax + ryzen 5 7600)

What do you guys think about going for 7200MT/s with the MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk MAX WiFi? The Non-max is rated for 7200MT/s OC and the Max version is rated for 7800MT/s I figure that extra headroom on the max might make 7200 a good middleground on that board with a good kit. Thoughts?

I have a vengeance 6000CL30 (Cpu-z reports hynix) 2x16 kit and a 7800x3d. Im running it at 6000mhz (2033 FCLK) with expo primary timings and the other timings from buildzoid. 6200 boots fine but the north bridge clock halves; is that normal and/or anything to worry about in terms of performance? Thanks

I was able to get G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB 48GB DDR5 @ 7400 MT/s CL34 (F5-7200J3646F24GX2-TZ5RK) on an MSI MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI DDR5 with an Intel i9-14900k. It ain't much, but it's honest work getting that extra 200 MHz on the RAM. I could post 7800 but after a few days I couldn't figure out how to stabilize it with the voltages so I gave up.

"If you don't care about overclocking, then I don't know why you're watching this video." I'll tell you why, Buildzoid. I started overclocking with an AMD K6 CPU in like 1998 (i'm 37 now lol) and while I don't really overclock anymore, I still have a love for the craft of modifying and tweaking PC's. I'm in the market for a 14700K and just would like a nice stable 7000+ memory kit so this video helped! Keep up the good work, love listening to the rambling while I'm cooking for my kids and hopefully will teach them this hobby in due time. Cheers.

You are absolute right, I am in the process of buying 4 sticks memory kits and trying to get them work on AM5, only because it looks better. After a whole week of struggle, I am seriously thinking about falling back to just 2 sticks. It's just too damn hard 🤣 A standard 4 Memtest86 run for my 192GB kit takes 9 ~ 10 hours, that's insane 🤯 Even if I get the memtest to pass for one time or two, still seeing BSOD from time to time. It's too damn unstable.

I'm deciding between Corsair Vengeance or Gskill Flare CL30 6000 for my new build. The Corsair kit is on the X670E Aorus Master QVL list, but the Gskill kit is not. I feel like I should go with Corsair... 😂

I don’t have plans to overclock my memory, but still wanna learn more about these stuff😂

Jesus Christ, 7 min into it and hes still talkin about how not to use more than 1 stick per channel.

For the 5600 C46 kit, it's really interesting. I have 2 kits on two different 7800X3D, I can't even do Trcd 40 at 6400/C30, meanwhile I can't go below 500 Trfc so it can't be M die. The sweet spot so far for me is 6200 C28-36 at 1.46V. Oh also the Trp can't go below 36 which is weird for A die.. For 6400 C32 kits, especially those 1.4V ones, at least all G.skill kits are overwhelmingly M die lately, I'm actually quite surprised

I really need 128gb of ram (a weird niche as a film composer that used a lot of VSTi's). Maybe i can manage with 96gb. Do you think the 2x64gb that will come in the future will be any good?

Was waiting for this I bought a cheapo 4800 8gb stick around a month ago(didn't have anymore money for my pc) and guess what turned out to be hynix so I'm running 6200 cl28 on it(I've got a 7700) Now I want to get better dimms

I am planing a workstation build right now. And I need more than 32GB capacity. There are 2x32GB gskil kits with 6800 cl34 as well as Corsair 6400 CL32 for about the same price in the store I am shopping at. I am not sure if 2x24 would be enough capacity for this build but 2x48 seems overkill.

TG classic JEDEC kit is M/A die, but they recently started flashing the kits with expo/xmp. not sure bout OC quality being worse. Mine is M-die

Planning on getting x770/e or whatever the next amd mobos will be. Skipping x650/e and x670/e series.

My suspicion is that A die is harder to run than 24gbit m die because it has slightly less latency and communicates with the cpu at slightly quicker intervals leading to more stress on the memory controller at same speeds.

I love how nobody talked about memory controllers in the DDR3/DDR2 days. And I especially love buying a motherboard with 4 dimm slots only to use 2.

Is there a long enough period now that we know what optimal speed to purchase DDR5 RAM? DDR4 was between 3600 - 4000 mhz. Any higher is diminishing returns.

I currently own a Asus z690-a board with 6000mhz cl36 i9 13900k. Would I be able to get a newer ram kit for example 7200mhz kit or would my board be the limiting factor forcing me to upgrade to a z790 board ?

I bought a TeamGroup 32GB 6000 cl30 kit for my 13600K/ASUS Z790-A and the XMP profile sets the SA and IMC voltages to 1.249v and 1.332v respectively. Are those safe voltages for 24/7?

Any tips or trick with the new AMD bios that ‘supports higher memory Overclock’ that was release few weeks ago?

got my irs refund and decided to go with 2x48 6400mhz rip jaws you spoke about for my 7950x3d. ill downclock it 6200 or 6000. cant wait to try it out.

Got 2x24GB 8GHz (G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB F5-8000J4048F24GX2-TZ5RW) to pair with my X670e Gene, quite happy, lowering latency was quite easy :) EDIT (7800X3D)

Hey, could you please make a video for ram timings on a dual rank 2x32gb ram for ryzen 7000? I have a G.Skill 2x32gb cl32 6000mhz and I ran your settings on that video. Worked fine a few days till today when I started getting bsods and bios freezes every minute. Went back to EXPO II and it fixed.

I got gskill 6400 cl32 2x16gb kit last december for 13900k on strix Z790 motherboard. I got an A die version and it can run at 7000 cl 38 41 41 41 easily and stable. I think this kit is still one of the best to get.

for 2×8 i think KF552C36BBEK2-16 are A-die (according to some qvls) and here in France you can save 40 bucks over anything 2×16 guaranteed hynix

Any 2x48 (6000 MT) GB dual-channel kit suggestions preferably with EXPO for an Asus X670E-E? All I found was CMK96GX5M2B6000C30 which isn't EXPO and the reviews are mixed.

I got AsRock B650M-HDV/M.2 and Ryzen 5 7500F. Is there any difference between XMP and EXPO memory kits? I'm considering G.Skill Flare X5 or Ripjaws S5, both 6000 CL30 or CL32, depending on which one is available.

I have a set of 2x16 Team Group T-Force DDR5 6800MHZ 34-44-44-84, On a 13700K ASUS ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi, i enabled XMP Tweaked then bumped the speed to 7200, stability tested with mem test & Karhu all stable. then one of my sticks stopped working. My question is i can get the same Team Group Kit but the 7200MT/s kit for the same price as the 6800 kit I'm returning. IF i could run the 6800 kit @ 7200 i should be able to run the 7200 kit right?

What’s max safe voltage for the memory controller and ivr transmitter vddq voltage on 14th gen for daily use

Just started the vid but I recently bought G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 96GB (2 x 48GB) DDR5 6400 Model F5-6400J3239F48GX2-TZ5RK working awesome for my needs. Probably trash though eh?

please, can any expert answer? I have a 7800x3d and an MSI x670e... I can't get the RAM to run at 6200/6400 or even at 6000 without crashing and with basic timing... what could it be? Is it the CPU's fault? or could it be the faulty motherboard? or in these cases the motherboard has nothing to do with it?

Good content, but man i need x3 speed up.

I’ve just bought 32gb Corsair dominator titanium 6600MTs ddr5 and I can’t get it to post and my motherboard is a gigabyte z790 elite ax. Could it be my i5 12600k it’s constantly on a orange cpu light on the motherboard and won’t post at all

i have the red 5600 cl36 teamgroup vulcans and they have hynix inside. no idea how far they clock, had so far no incentive to oc.

Buildzoid, just watched a video where a guy set a 7950X3D to -40 in Curve Optimizer and then adjusted the LLC setting to Extreme on a Aorus Motherboard to keep it stable, just wondering how safe you think this is?

hey buildzoid i have been getting issues with my asus encore apex running fine and then one day giving me error 53 and error 55 i know the ram is fine i have memtested it i do a hard reset and it works. had it running great on xmp2 and then same issue been advised to upp my vddq to 1.45 im going to try that you ever experienced this?

Any plans on doing a dual rank DDR5 timing video?

What about voltage any meaningful difference between 1.4 and 1.35 volts? Does 1.4 volt for the same speed mean worse quality?

will ddr5 flare x5 30-38-38-96 will work with asrock hdv m2 b650? maybe anyone knows answer please

Just a newbie for d5 oc , dumb question here can 6000 c30 oc to 7200 or even 8000? What's the difference between 6000 c30 or 6800 c34 kits both of them are hynix A die

I think messed up big time by buying G.Skill DDR5-7200 CL34 kit for "13600K/Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X". They all are in transit, let's see how lucky I get.

I have limited options from where i can buy memory. Is the corsair vengeance 2x32gb 6000MT/s 30-36-3-76 1.40v an sk hynix die? I want to pair them with an i7-14700.

From what i have gathered the G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32gb 7600Mhz/Cl36 kit is 100% A-die if someone is looking for a cheaper Hynix A-die. 7200 and most of the 7400 kits are just M-die.

just going to upgrade my 5900x GB Master x570 2x16Gb G.skill 4000Mhz c16-16-16-36 with 2000 on the imc and if (i need 64gb so going AM5) So i think lets make some COFFEE and watch that rambling guy on yt to see if we got the memory right. Gone for an 7800x3d, Asus x670E Creator, and 2x32Gb G.skill Trident z5 6000Mhz c30 (bought the XMP one since that was 30$ cheaper then that EXPO stuff) So should work. else i get back here and ramble myself :P

Thoughts on using the 2*16 G.skill Trident Z5 6400 CL32 (F5-6400J3239G16GX2-TZ5K) on a Mag z790 Tomahawk paired with a 13900k?

Are 48GB worth it for beeing easy to run if they are only 30€ cheaper then 64GB. The 48GB kit is 193€ while the chepast 6000 CL 32 or better 64GB kit is 229€.

Someone in a discord I’m in is very sup set with amd and asus because asus as apparently pumping 220w into his 7700x and also his 4x32gb kit of ram wouldn’t because stable at 6000

Gskill specifies the die manufacturer on their expo modules

What would be the best 2x32GB Kit for a 7800X3D on a X670E ot X650E, thanks!

what 2x48 should i pair with a 13900ks on z690?

Which Z790 motherboard is best for 4 ddr5 7200mhz? I'm using ASUS 690 hero it doesn't work with 4 kit. right now, I'm using only 2.

cani get the gskill 16gb 5600mhz for my i5 12400 and h610 asus mobo ? will it be good choice ?

Can you show some, like, quantitative data over these signalling issues? This seems like a fake or at least exaggerated issue at a consumer, non-sensitive level.

hey i have a 13th gen i9 6000 32x2kit is it a waste of time if i was to upgrade to a ddr5 7600mhz kit

Thanks for the help and the lols @ roasting companies. I wanna rant @ all the ramblings for the normies, but this is content for nomish, so, I'll forgive ... this once 😉

I love Buildzoid's opionion. No BS just straight up the truth. Funny how this one Tech RU-vidr says how "found" the T Create Kit as the best deal. Yeah sure...

"I AM speed, Jon." - DDR5

Bought a i5-13600KF and $157 Asrock z690 pg velocita. I'm not too overclock savvy, Any recommendations (32gb-62gb) to just run XMP? I'm a simple man that need simple answers. Thank you!

can you conisder dark mode for PCpartpicker

I have 6400 cl32 klevv ram Is there some benefits of changing to 7200 cl34 ram?