Memory Matters for Gaming

Digital Foundry has tested a range of DRAM at various frequencies, capacities, and technologies to see what impact the newest memory subsystems have on the latest games. The involvement from CORSAIR has been limited to providing only the hardware and memory necessary for the testing, and we haven't been involved in the actual benchmarking ourselves, which has been carried out to Digital Foundry's exceptional high standards.

The purpose of the testing was to investigate how different memory configurations impact frame rates in popular titles:

• Does capacity affect how smooth a game feels?
• How about the memory frequency?
• Does DDR5 make a difference when compared to DDR4?

Digital Foundry set out to answer these questions, with its stellar attention to detail.

To be able to compare DDR4 and DDR5 memory, an Intel Core i9 13900KF was used. Intel's current 13th Gen Core processors support both memory technologies, making it the ideal choice for testing. In case you were wondering, AMD's latest Ryzen 7000 chips exclusively support DDR5, which makes it challenging to achieve similar comparisons. That said, the results from the testing are largely platform agnostic, and you would in theory see a similar performance delta if AMD's latest chips did indeed support both memory technologies.

Two motherboards were used during testing: an MSI MAG B660M MORTAR MAX for assessing the performance of DDR4, and an ASRock Intel Z790 Steel Legend for DDR5. Other than that, and the memory used, the rest of the system remained the same, including the graphics card, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. Additionally, the same storage and version of Windows 11 was used for both platforms as well.

When it comes to the actual tests themselves, Digital Foundry selected a range of games that span a variety of different genres: Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Gotham Knights. These are all popular games that have been released recently and look incredible on PC, particularly at 4K using the highest settings.

All testing was done at 4K (3840 x 2160) using the highest possible settings, with ray tracing enabled where applicable and DLSS as well. You can find a complete breakdown of the results on the Memory Gaming Benchmarks page.

Digital Foundry recorded footage for each run so that comparisons could be made between any memory kits, as well as providing detailed frame rate information. Average frame rates are of most interest here, although the 1% minimum frame rates also reveal a lot about how smooth a game feels to play. In both cases, the higher the frame rate the better.

The biggest takeaway from Digital Foundry's testing, is the performance improvements seen when using DDR5 in modern games. We know that DDR5, which is the most recent memory standard to be released, offered more bandwidth than its predecessor, DDR4, and that it was going to be the technology worth supporting going forward. Yet, the improvements it offers comparatively in game is even more impressive than you might think. You're looking at as much as a 31% improvement to average frame rates when upgrading from 32GB of DDR4-3000 to 32GB of DDR5-6000. That specific performance improvement can be found in Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, although the other games aren't far behind either.

That "base" DDR4 configuration isn't exactly lowly either, with 32GB of DDR4-3000 C18 representing a good setup for any modern gaming machine. If you're running a smaller capacity DDR4 config in your PC, then there are even more performance gains to be had. In Digital Foundry's testing, the biggest frame rate improvements occured when upgrading from 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR4-2666 up to 32GB of DDR5-6000, where you'll see performance increase by as much as 71% on the average frame rates.

Ultimately, DDR5 makes for a much smoother gaming experience.

This is only part of the story. One of the other takeaways from Digital Foundry's testing is how much the minimum frame rates increase when upgrading capacity as well. This is worth highlighting, because any drop in frame rates can make a game feel laggy and produce a stuttering experience. Ideally you want the minimum frame rates to be as close to the average frame rate as possible for an overall smooth experience. The testing shows that improving capacity is one way to help here too.

Modern games, especially those being developed initially as Sony PlayStation 5 exclusives, are demanding more and more memory for optimal performance at 4K using high-resolution assets. There have been several high-profile games released recently that have asked for 32GB of DRAM for the best experience at the highest possible settings. Hogwarts Legacy, Forspoken, and Returnal are all examples of this, although Diablo IV also recommends 32GB of RAM for the Ultra 4K experience—suggesting it isn't just console gaming pushing memory demands forward. The recent Ray Tracing Overdrive rendering path for Cyberpunk 2077 also requires 24GB of RAM.

16GB is no longer enough for the best PC gaming experience.

It's worth highlighting at this point that one of the benefits of DDR5 is the increase in supported capacity. CORSAIR now offers memory kits all the way up to 192GB across four sticks. 16GB (2x 8GB) kits are also available, but they're not the most common capacity, which is 32GB (2x 16GB). If you're upgrading or piecing together a gaming machine right now, this testing would suggest that 32GB of speedy DDR5 is the way to go.

Check out the full range of CORSAIR DDR5 DRAM for your next upgrade.