Waiting for Alder Lake / DDR5

[Nemo 1,305]

After four years with my current CPU/RAM system I going to upgrade my PC in near future. Alder Lake aka i9-12000 series has received very good performance reports on tech sites. It will need a new MB with a new socket/chipset (LGA 1700 / Z690) and will support DDR4 or DDR5 RAM. Unfortunately, I have upgraded my DDR4 RAM very recently. But now I read that games that rely on streaming will notably benefit from DDR5 RAM.

What are your thoughts, anybody else with upgrade plans?

@mods: I put this topic here rather than in the hardware forum, because I think the DDR5 vs DDR4 question is relevant for MSFS.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Nemo

[40track 80]

Was going to do this too. Looks like it may support DDR4-3200 too. If this is possible use what you have as the read write timings are very sloppy at present with DDR5 giving DDR4-3200 the edge and giving your rated mem even more of an edge. However Latency is better with DDR5 for a longer term upgrade.

Edited October 28, 2021 by 40track

[FAZZ3 815]

I’m planning to build a new PC as well. I’m holding off for some time until Nov 4 when they’re actually releasing, so we can see lots of independent reviewers verifying intel’s claims.

I’m more concerned about the pricing of the new parts though, namely the DDR5 ram, the new Z690 chipsets, and the new CPU’s. If they’re too out of reach I’ll probably stick to the current gen as hopefully they’ll see some reduction in prices. 

Edited October 28, 2021 by FAZZ3

[bobcat999 8,477]

I am going for this combo as well if the motherboard definitely supports DDR4 RAM.  I can then upgrade to DDR5 later.   

I don't want to do it all at once, as I just splashed out on a 3080Ti - I am pleased with it though.  

'games that rely on streaming will notably benefit from DDR5 RAM' - Any idea why? 
A decent modem and internet speeds, yes, but I can't see how DDR5 RAM would specifically help with streaming.

Edited October 28, 2021 by bobcat999

[March Hare 720]

9 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

I am going for this combo as well if the motherboard definitely supports DDR4 RAM.  I can then upgrade to DDR5 later.   

I don't want to do it all at once, as I just splashed out on a 3080Ti - I am pleased with it though.  

'games that rely on streaming will notably benefit from DDR5 RAM' - Any idea why? 
A decent modem and internet speeds, yes, but I can't see how DDR5 RAM would specifically help with streaming.

It's probably due to increased speed, for one, as it's fine having a fast internet connection, but your PC needs to be able to handle the incoming data and move the data around quickly.

Edited October 28, 2021 by March Hare

[psolk 3,040]

Waiting here too.  Been waiting for a few months based on the rumored performance gains.  Also concerned with costs/supply chain and based on current trends don't expect the prior generation to drop much in price as nothing is going to change from a supply chain perspective which is artificially driving prices up.  Don't see anything changing on that from in 2021 or first half of 2022... 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Just like when DDR4 initially launched, DDR5 will be slower and more expensive initially. While speeds are higher, latencies are still a problem. Samsung are estimating that the DDR5 crossover for consumers will not happen until late 2023/early 2024. Until then, I wouldn't recommend going with DDR5.

Also it's important to note that Intel did their benchmarks on 1st October according to the footnotes, which means the Ryzen L3 bug was still present on Windows 11. As such, the gaming performance gap between Alder Lake and Zen 3 is not as big as their slides suggest.

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

I am going for this combo as well if the motherboard definitely supports DDR4 RAM.  I can then upgrade to DDR5 later.

The pin layout is different, so a motherboard can only support either. You'll have to upgrade both.

[JimBrown 596]

LTT has a decent explanation of the difference between DDR4 and DDR5: 

 

[Spit40 197]

Same here, googling "i9-12900k" most days for latest leaked benchmarks. My poor 3090 is being choked by my aging 6700k

[bobcat999 8,477]

12 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

The pin layout is different, so a motherboard can only support either. You'll have to upgrade both.

Yikes!  I will wait for the early adopters to go first then.  That will give me an extra few months to save the money!  

After re-reading your post, I get it.  First boards will be DDR4.  That will do for me then. 

Edited October 28, 2021 by bobcat999

[psolk 3,040]

So with DDR5 and GEForce Now from Nvidia and the ability to "stream a 3080ti" from the cloud plus MSFS in the cloud the need for massive pipes only seems to be increasing... 

Is anyone familiar with this new found video card streaming technology?  120 FPS in 4K from a GPU in the cloud? 

[Republic3D 1,232]

3 hours ago, psolk said:

So with DDR5 and GEForce Now from Nvidia and the ability to "stream a 3080ti" from the cloud plus MSFS in the cloud the need for massive pipes only seems to be increasing... 

Is anyone familiar with this new found video card streaming technology?  120 FPS in 4K from a GPU in the cloud? 

The game is being run on a remote server with "3080 ti" like performance, and all that's happening on your end is the visuals being piped from the server. 
There's still issues with latency and such, but it might not be a problem with flight sims.

In theory you could run it on almost any system, so I don't know why they're mentioning it.

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

7 hours ago, Nemo said:

But now I read that games that rely on streaming will notably benefit from DDR5 RAM.

LOL

As if RAM could be the bottleneck of an Internet connection...

[Waldo Pepper 1,952]

4 hours ago, Spit40 said:

Same here, googling "i9-12900k" most days for latest leaked benchmarks. My poor 3090 is being choked by my aging 6700k

My Strix 3090 is the bottleneck with a 10900k @ 5ghz all cores @4k ultra (all sliders but render scaling full right, render scaling set to 100).    A month or two ago I put the system on a battery backup ups,   it draws 830watts at full load in MSFS (fps lock set to 60fps).

The Strix is supposed to draw 480watts max,  and the 10900k draws around 335 watts.   Alder Lake is supposed to draw 330watts @ 5.2ghz.   Doesn't surprise me, as Alder Lake is 10 nanometer,   10900k is 14 nm,  while Ryzen 9 has been 7 nm.

My electric bill suggests that I should be conscious of performance per watt.   But, overclocking and building my own systems has always been a hobby for me,   so I'm always tempted.   Ryzen 9 really had the efficiency advantage last round,   so part of me really wants to wait for AMD to respond to Alder Lake.   It would probably be around 6 months or so to wait,  so better DDR5 sticks might be around then too.   

Being GPU bottlenecked suggests that a CPU upgrade wouldn't be a huge benefit while in flight,   but the loading times should be a nice improvement.  I don't think any of us are fans of sim loading times.

If I do jump,  I'll just sell the old cpu/mb/ddr4 to a friend or flying buddy.    So that offsets some of the costs for a hobbyist.

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Waldo Pepper

[Spit40 197]

6 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

My Strix 3090 is the bottleneck with a 10900k @ 5ghz all cores @4k ultra (all sliders but render scaling full right, render scaling set to 100).    A month or two ago I put the system on a battery backup ups,   it draws 830watts at full load in MSFS (fps lock set to 60fps).

The Strix is supposed to draw 480watts max,  and the 10900k draws around 335 watts.

My electric bill suggests that I should be conscious of performance per watt.   But, overclocking and building my own systems has always been a hobby for me,   so I'm always tempted.   Ryzen 9 really had the efficiency advantage lasts round,   so part of me really wants to wait for AMD to respond to Alder Lake.   It would probably be around 6 months or so to wait,  so better DDR5 sticks might be around then too.

Being GPU bottlenecked suggests that a CPU upgrade wouldn't be a huge benefit while in flight,   but the loading times should be a nice improvement.  I don't think any of us are a fan of sim loading times.

If I do jump,  I'll just sell the old cpu/mb/ddr4 to a friend or flying buddy.    So that offsets some of the costs for a hobbyist.

 

Thanks for that information. Guess a 10900k would be just as good as a 12900k then. Still, might as well be futureproofed. I like to skip a few generations each time I upgrade.