G.Skill Hits 5GHz With Overclocked Air-Cooled Dual-Channel Memory Kit

News
By Derek Forrest
published

G.Skill announced that it is developing a new kit of dual-channel RGB memory that breaks the 5GHz barrier with air cooling.

To be clear, G.Skill isn’t announcing a DDR4-5000 memory kit. Yet. The company was able to reach the 5,000MHz barrier on an existing 16GB (2 x 8GB) kit of Trident Z RGB DDR4-4700 by overclocking the RAM an additional 300MHz using an MSI Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard with an Intel Core i7-8700K in the CPU socket. Previously, you’d have to run some kind of liquid cooling (either via open-loop waterblock or LN2 pots) on a single-channel RAM module to reach that speed, but G.Skill pushed its Samsung DDR4 B-die ICs to 5GHz in its CPU-Z verified overclocking experiment with stock Trident Z heatsinks and dual-channel operation.

The incredibly high memory speeds don’t come without some drawbacks. The RAM reached its insanely ridiculous frequency at the cost of CAS latency (the RAM was verified with a CAS timing of 21-26-26-46) and overvoltage (a scorching 1.45V). However, the fact that G.Skill was able to attain a stable system at these settings in dual-channel operation with stock heatsinks is impressive, and the company plans to develop DDR4 RAM kits that reach the 5GHz now that it’s proved that frequency is attainable.

“Previously, the 5GHz memory speed [was] only achievable in extreme overclocking and in single-channel. We’re excited to share that we’ve been able to achieve the 5GHz memory speed in not only air-cooling conditions, but also in dual-channels. This is a major milestone for us,” said Tequila Huang, Corporate Vice President at G.Skill International. “We will make every effort to bring this specification onto the consumer market, and bring the experience of extreme performance to worldwide users.”

Clearly, there’s some work to be done before these kinds of RAM speeds hit the consumer market, but it’s exciting to see G.Skill slowly move the memory speed goalpost a little further down the track with its product development. A release date and pricing is sheer speculation at this point, but a 16GB kit of G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-5000 certainly won’t be cheap.

Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AgentLozen
    DDR4 @ 5000MHz is a really cool acomplishment.

    The question is - what do you do with 5000MHz DDR4 memory? What sort of application benefits from it?

    When we hear about overclocked CPUs or graphics cards, it's easy to imagine the benefit of those clock speeds. That's not the case with system memory though. DDR4-3200 provides all the bandwidth any desktop user could need.
    Reply
  • Dantte
    20835027 said:
    DDR4 @ 5000MHz is a really cool acomplishment.

    The question is - what do you do with 5000MHz DDR4 memory? What sort of application benefits from it?

    When we hear about overclocked CPUs or graphics cards, it's easy to imagine the benefit of those clock speeds. That's not the case with system memory though. DDR4-3200 provides all the bandwidth any desktop user could need.

    Overclocking a CPU is pretty much the whole reason for high-speed memory. This is the whole purpose behind my coffee build: get some good memory, supporting MB, and you can overclock a relatively cheap processor to a great processor with ease!
    Reply
  • derekullo
    I just learned how to calculate the true latency of ram.

    Ok well its just A*B=C, but it wasn't immediately obvious lol.

    Let me know if the math is wrong or if this is just completely wrong ...

    http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/memory-performance-speed-latency


    5000/2 = 2500

    1/2500(ddr4) = a cycle time of 0.4 nanoseconds.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_latency

    Which closely matches the CAS for DDR4-4800 of 0.417 nanoseconds


    0.4 nanoseconds x a cas of 21 = a true latency of 8.4 nanoseconds.


    To put this in perspective lets focus on the original timings of the ram to see if this is faster or slower.

    The original G.Skill Trident was a DDR4-4700 with a CAS of 19

    4700/2 = 2350

    1/2350 = a cycle time of 0.425 nanoseconds

    0.425 nanoseconds x a cas of 19 = a true latency of 8.075


    Meaning the original ram was quicker by about 4% due do its tighter timings.

    It is still an accomplishment, as mentioned earlier, but I guess this is why they haven't pushed the 5000 into marketing.

    If they drop the cas down to 20 with the 5000 overclock that would come out to

    0.4 nanoseconds x a cas of 20 = a true latency of 8.00 nanoseconds, about 1% faster than the marketed overclock and timings.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    I'd love to see a Ryzen Vega build benchmarked with these memories
    Reply
  • BulkZerker
    @AGENTLOZEN

    "No one will ever need more than 16 megabytes of ram." We will certainly appreciate the speed sooner rather than later. Especially those pushing the limits of raven ridge APUs.
    Reply
  • Soda-88
    For anyone wondering about use cases for these kits:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNk0NNQQ8s

    TL;DW extreme overclocking/benchmarking
    Reply
  • mischon123
    It will get interesting when more processing is moved on ram dies and running at 5khz. As it is DDR4 is pretty much as fast as it can get at 4khz.
    Reply
  • Martell1977
    20835027 said:
    DDR4 @ 5000MHz is a really cool acomplishment.

    The question is - what do you do with 5000MHz DDR4 memory? What sort of application benefits from it?

    When we hear about overclocked CPUs or graphics cards, it's easy to imagine the benefit of those clock speeds. That's not the case with system memory though. DDR4-3200 provides all the bandwidth any desktop user could need.

    It's not just the RAM speed when talking about AMD CPU's. We know the infinity fabric in Ryzen and Threadripper scales with RAM speed. I would love to see some benchmarks showing several RAM speeds, including this one so see jsut how much difference it truly makes.
    Reply
  • DerekA_C
    I know the stock 2400mhz to 3200mhz is actually a huge percentage faster on my ryzen build
    Reply
  • Ninjawithagun
    20835050 said:
    20835027 said:
    DDR4 @ 5000MHz is a really cool acomplishment.

    The question is - what do you do with 5000MHz DDR4 memory? What sort of application benefits from it?

    When we hear about overclocked CPUs or graphics cards, it's easy to imagine the benefit of those clock speeds. That's not the case with system memory though. DDR4-3200 provides all the bandwidth any desktop user could need.

    Overclocking a CPU is pretty much the whole reason for high-speed memory. This is the whole purpose behind my coffee build: get some good memory, supporting MB, and you can overclock a relatively cheap processor to a great processor with ease!

    Unfortunately, Intel's use of cheap TIM greatly limits the overclocking potential. The only real solution to resolve this issue is to delid and go liquid metal, effectively voiding the warranty of your shiny new processor. Sad Intel, sad :(
    Reply