Not sure which memory kit fits gear 1 or gear 2—consider your needs and compatibility.
Not sure which memory kit fits gear 1 or gear 2—consider your needs and compatibility.
So while considering going up to DDR5 for my build, I've been hearing a lot about Gear 1, Gear 2, why some RAM kits will work and some won't. It seems like a lot, and I'd rather just have someone tell me what 2x16GB kit to buy. Here's the rest of my build. PCPartPicker Part List CPU: Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor ($153.66 @ Amazon) Motherboard: ASRock Z690M-ITX/ax Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard ($134.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Crucial P3 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($124.99 @ B&H) Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card ($799.99 @ Newegg) Case: Fractal Design Ridge PCIe 4.0 Mini ITX Tower Case ($125.79 @ Amazon) Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS SGX (2021) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply ($109.99 @ Amazon) Total: $1449.41 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-16 22:15 EDT-0400
When planning for DDR5, focus on stability rather than early speeds. For DDR4, aim for Gear 1 if feasible to benefit from lower latency, but be aware that higher clocks in Gear 2 can offset some of that advantage. On DDR4, Gear 1 reaches about 4000MT/s, while Gear 2 needs over 5000MT/s to match performance, which often leads to stability challenges. In DDR5, there’s no Gear 1 option, so you’ll always be in Gear 2, but you can leverage higher clock speeds that usually make DDR4 faster in Gear 1. If you choose DDR5, consider the recommended kits listed.
I’m choosing DDR4 since it’s about $60 more on the motherboard and offers better RAM options overall. I’ll likely pick the micro center bundle for the 12600kf, an MSI Z790 board, and 16GB of DDR4 for around $250, aiming to find a compact case. The RAM they offer is 2x8GB at 3200MHz.