Is DDR5 Good for Gaming?

This has become one of the most important questions for PC gamers: Is DDR5 good for PC gaming? DDR5 has not completely dominated the mainstream DRAM market yet, because motherboards made in the last decade still support DDR4—including Intel’s 12th-gen processors. However, it is evident that DDR5 is the future of PC gaming. When DDR5 came into the picture, it opened a great opportunity to take PC gaming to higher performance levels.

When it comes to PC gaming, it is universally accepted that the GPU, or graphics card if you prefer, does all the heavy lifting. Its core responsibility is to process and render images, scenes, and complex animations and then display them on your gaming monitor.

The CPU is essential as well though, because it is responsible for handling all the in-game calculations, such as executing instructions from your keyboard and mouse, loading maps, processing in-game events, etc.

Like the CPU and GPU, DRAM can also impact the overall performance of your PC system. Think of it this way, if the CPU is the brain where all the instructions are being processed, the RAM is the temporary memory where all the data are processed so that the CPU can move those data to the next designated location.

Does DDR5 improve gaming performance?

On paper, we know DDR5 is a level above DDR4. It has twice the bandwidth and capacity of DDR4 and is more efficient with regard to power consumption. The only advantage of DDR4 over DDR5 is that DDR4 has lower CAS latency. The lower the latency, the quicker the CPU can access the data temporarily stored in the RAM, resulting in a more responsive system.

With DDR5's higher data transfer speeds, you would think that alone translates to better gaming. But that is not always the case. You would also want to take CAS latency into account because those two RAM specs (frequency and latency) have the biggest impact on the performance of your PC while gaming.

DDR5 with higher transfer speed will help improve frame rate, not dramatically, but it will enhance overall PC performance. Technically, a DDR5 kit around the 5200MT/s range will be sufficient, but if you want to take it up a notch, a 6000MT/s or even 6400MT/s kit will help increase your game’s frame rate.

As for CAS latency, DDR5 has achieved optimized CAS latencies a lot faster than DDR4 did when it was first released. Even with high latencies, DDR5’s massive bandwidth improvements are enough to compensate for its high latencies. For PC gaming, CL38 would be a good starting point to run games lag-free. Remember, the lower the value, the better, so going for DDR5 with a CAS latency as low as CL36 or CL34 is ideal, especially for games that are extremely sensitive to latency.

DRR5 may have slower timings compared to DDR4 at the initial release, but as the technology matures, DDR5 will improve and have tighter timings in the future.

DDR5 also has twice the capacity of DDR4. This means more data can be stored in the memory, and with larger space, more applications can be run simultaneously without slowing down your system. For gaming, 16GB has pretty much become the standard nowadays, as it should handle most of the games. That's changing though. 32GB is quickly becoming the new baseline for DDR5 systems, particularly if you're looking at 4K at the highest settings. Anything larger than 32GB is more than enough for any application you can throw at your system, and a good overhead to run larger game files (triple AAA titles) in the future.

The key is to have a good balance between those three specs (frequency, latency, and capacity), as game performance improvements will vary from game to game. For example, flight simulator games are more CPU-intensive, so having a DDR5 with higher frequency is beneficial as it speeds up the data transfer between your CPU and RAM. Games that tax your GPU will benefit from DDR5 kits that have high speed and large capacities, as it improves frame rates and load times.

The bottom line is that upgrading your system to DDR5 is the right path if you want to improve your PC gaming experience now and in the future. There are advantages of running DDR5 RAM with high-rated bandwidth. Though the impact may not be profound, having the latest RAM technology in your PC can improve frame rates and overall gaming performance.

Check out the full range of CORSAIR DDR5 memory for more information.