Overclocker Closes in on DDR5-10000 Record

Persistence is the key to success. Extreme overclocker 林大餅Bing (via Buildzoid) has just broken the previous world record of DDR5-8888. On this occasion, he got G.Skill's Trident Z5 memory to DDR5-9560, just 440 MHz shy of hitting the DDR5-10000.

Not much has changed in regards to hardware. The overclocker's setup consisted of the Core i9-12900K, one of the best CPUs, the overclocking-friendly ROG Maximus Z690 Apex motherboard, and G.Skill's Trident Z5 (F5-6000U4040E16G) memory. Finally, of course, we can't forget the liters and liters of liquid nitrogen that went into accomplishing the new feat.

In his previous attempt, 林大餅Bing got to DDR5-8888 by relaxing the primary timings from 40-40-40-76 to 88-88-88-88. However, this time around, the overclocker resorted to 127-120-120-120 to attain enough stability for DDR5-9560. The effort represented a slight 8% uplift over the prior world record. It only took two weeks for 林大餅Bing to break the earlier record, but it shows that the overclocker has progressed in reaching the sought-after DDR5-10000 mark.

Although some DR5 memory kits haven't made it to the market, memory specialist G.Skill unquestionably has the fastest retail DDR5 offerings in its brand's arsenal. The continuing power management IC (PMIC) and voltage regulating module (VRM) shortage has put memory vendors in a difficult position. However, the company has already shown a DDR5-7000 C40 memory kit. In addition, for the more timing-conscious consumers, a DDR5-6400 C32 is close to launching.

In its current state, DDR5 has failed to unseat the best RAM currently available on the market. The outrageous pricing and lack of supply don't help with DDR5 adoption, either. Furthermore, Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake processors are the only consumer chips to use DDR5, but they're happy with DDR4 too, depending on your motherboard choice. Things should start picking up when AMD launches its Ryzen 7000 Zen 4, sometime in the second half of the year.