Friday, August 6th 2021

Corsair Postulates That DDR5 Memory Runs Hotter

by
Uskompuf
 Discuss (43 Comments)
Corsair DIY Marketing Director, George Makris recently confirmed in a recent video that DDR5 memory could "conceivably could run much hotter than DDR4" due to voltage regulation being moved to the memory modules from the motherboard. This was reiterated by Corsair Memory Product Manager, Matt Woithe, who notes that they are prepared to handle this increased heat in Corsair DDR5 modules using their Dual-path Heat Xchange (DHX) technology. The next generation of memory also mandates the inclusion of on-die EEC which while not confirmed by Corsair will also add to the power budget of the modules. Corsair is expecting to release their first DDR5 memory modules towards the end of this year which will coincide with the launch of Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake processors. AMD fans will need to wait until 2022 with the launch of Zen 4 to take advantage of the new DDR5 memory modules.
Corsair Lab Tech Talk - DDR5 Memory

Source: Corsair Lab

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43 Comments on Corsair Postulates That DDR5 Memory Runs Hotter

#26
Tetras
mechtechThe next generation of memory also mandates the inclusion of on-die EEC which…

Im assuming that’s ECC?

and I don’t think the market segregation team at Intel is gonna like that. ;)
It's not equivalent to the kind of ecc support that workstations and servers have now so there will still be that split in the market.
Posted on Reply
#27
Valantar
Yeah, was it @TheLostSwede who explained this so well at one point? From what I can remember, DDR5's on-die ECC protects against static in-RAM data errors, but not in-flight data errors, which (IIRC) are more common. So there's some additional protection, but not to the level of full ECC, which protects against in-flight errors as well.
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#29
Chrispy_
ValantarYeah, was it @TheLostSwede who explained this so well at one point? From what I can remember, DDR5's on-die ECC protects against static in-RAM data errors, but not in-flight data errors, which (IIRC) are more common. So there's some additional protection, but not to the level of full ECC, which protects against in-flight errors as well.
baby steps.
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#30
MentalAcetylide
Hotter running graphics cards, hotter running CPUs, and now possibly hotter functioning DDR5 RAM. Looks like things are heating up in the PC world. With these developing trends, I wonder how long before the cooling solution for the average PC ends up costing more than the PC itself.
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#32
FireFox
The Power Of Intel
Nvidia GPUs runs hot, AMD GPUs + CPU runs hot, Intel CPUs runs hot, Samsung SSD runs hot and now Corsair next Ram Gen will run hot.
Now I understand why the glaciers are melting and the planet is warming so fast
Posted on Reply
#33
watzupken
persondbOne thing to note is that DDR5 also runs at lower voltages, 1.1V I believe, so that's about 10% less than DDR4.
Also buck converters have very high efficiency and they don't need to put a small one.
The chips are being designed with the on-die ECC, so maybe it won't be a big increase in heat, who knows. As they go into new nodes though, they will likely get some power savings(which is probably not going to be very big, but even small things help).

I think Corsair is just saying that to cover their ass in case they release a kit which thermal throttles, "it's not our fault! It's how DDR5 is"-kind of thing.
1.1V is JEDEC standard, and not likely to run at high clockspeed or tight latencies. For these overclocked RAM, I am expecting higher power consumption and heat output just by considering the clockspeed they are running. We don't have to speculate for too long before DDR5 becomes more common.
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#34
TheoneandonlyMrK
Hardly rocket science though is it, pAck in more performance, then add the power regulating circuit = more heat.

Obviously ffs.
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#35
persondb
watzupken1.1V is JEDEC standard, and not likely to run at high clockspeed or tight latencies. For these overclocked RAM, I am expecting higher power consumption and heat output just by considering the clockspeed they are running. We don't have to speculate for too long before DDR5 becomes more common.
JEDEC standard is for up to 3200MHz or 6400MT/s speeds. You don't really expect more than that for some time, right? Most initial modules will also probably be at JEDEC timings too. If we take a look at DDR4, they have a 1.2V and the tighter latencies are generally ran with 1.35V, maybe more for the more extreme kits.

The actual memory array clock has been kept constant for a long time too(200MHz, I think?).
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#36
Chrispy_
dgianstefaniDo your own research, B die finder is a good tool to identify B die.

On your own link, the 4000+ have profile 1 at 1.45, and profile 2 at 1.35.
Give it up man - your comments are too easy to disprove. I see 1.35V across the board for the 4000 kit, but also the 4133 kit and the 4400 kit at 4266 speeds.

Patriot DDR4-4000

Patriot DDR4-4133

Patriot DDR4-4400


Also, Samsung stopped making B-die in early June last year.
Trident Z Royal Gold (isn't that supposed to be the best of the best cherry-picked old-stock Samsung B-Die?) is only 1.4V and so expensive it's not even funny.
www.gskill.com/specification/165/299/1617700891/F4-4000C16D-32GTRGA-Specification

An example of 4266+ Kits currently on sale in the UK, not a single one of which is higher than 1.45V. No 1.5V in sight, no 1.6V anywhere at any speed, all at speeds vastly in excess of the 3800+ you're moaning about.
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#37
Valantar
watzupken1.1V is JEDEC standard, and not likely to run at high clockspeed or tight latencies. For these overclocked RAM, I am expecting higher power consumption and heat output just by considering the clockspeed they are running. We don't have to speculate for too long before DDR5 becomes more common.
DDR5 JEDEC standards currently go to 6400, and are slated to hit 8400 in time (just as DDR4 started at 2133, quickly went to 2400 and 2666, and then hit 3200 after a few years). So high clocks are definitely planned. Latencies for JEDEC specs are always loose - servers generally don't care much about those. But tightenting latencies don't require that much voltage, so if you can run 8400 CL[whatever] at 1.1V, then you can most likely run 8400 CL[somewhat less] at 1.2-1.3V. Of course, those speeds in early bins are likely to require mroe voltage, but that was the case for DDR4 as well - heck, finding (and running) anything above 3200 was difficult for quite a while. And 8400 is pretty fast, after all. Something like 6400 with low latency at 1.2V or thereabouts ought to become common pretty quickly once there's a market for these DIMMs.
Posted on Reply
#38
Chrispy_
Chances are good that the initial run of >6400MHz kits with loosey-goosey timings can be slowed down to 6400MHz with much tighter timings.

Early Alder Lake and Zen4 DDR5 IMCs are likely to be less that stellar too as this will be their first swing at DDR5 - Who knows how many AGESA revisions it will take for Zen4 to reliably run at >6400MHz with tight timings!

I'd like to be optimistic but history has proven time and time again that the first gen of any new tech tends to be superseded quickly as it's basically a paying beta that spends the majority of its product cycle getting patched and fixed up.
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#39
Valantar
Chrispy_Chances are good that the initial run of >6400MHz kits with loosey-goosey timings can be slowed down to 6400MHz with much tighter timings.

Early Alder Lake and Zen4 DDR5 IMCs are likely to be less that stellar too as this will be their first swing at DDR5 - Who knows how many AGESA revisions it will take for Zen4 to reliably run at >6400MHz with tight timings!

I'd like to be optimistic but history has proven time and time again that the first gen of any new tech tends to be superseded quickly as it's basically a paying beta that spends the majority of its product cycle getting patched and fixed up.
True, though I wonder if they have been focusing a lot of reasources on IMC development to make the DDR5 transition better than the DDR4 transition was - AMD has gone from having pretty terrible IMCs to competing for the best ones out there in just a couple of years, and Intel has likely been sampling server DDR5 systems for a while now. Given the IMC changes required I still wouldn't expect first-gen DDR5 to outperform DDR4>4000, but I'm vaguely hopeful that it won't be a complete shitshow. I guess we'll see though.
Posted on Reply
#40
Chrispy_
"Not a complete shitshow" would be nice. I'm prepared for the worst but hoping they exceed that low bar this time!
Posted on Reply
#41
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
TetrasIt's not equivalent to the kind of ecc support that workstations and servers have now so there will still be that split in the market.
My board supports ecc
Posted on Reply
#42
Tetras
eidairaman1My board supports ecc
Yeah, AMD may continue to support it with DDR5, but I was referring to Intel.
Posted on Reply
#43
The red spirit
OctopussHaha so the RAM heatsinks will serve a purpose for the first time ever? :D
Forgetting Rambus?
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