Discussion DDR4-3200 and DDR4 vs DDR5

[mikeymikec]

I've been building a few PCs lately (Intel 10th/11th gen), and I was a bit surprised to see that in the BIOS and the DDR4 frequency option, it goes all the way up to something absurd like DDR4-7800, maybe even higher. I'm a bit surprised that DDR5 is on the cards in the mainstream given how much extra headroom DDR4 apparently has. I suppose DDR3 technically had DDR3-2133 that I didn't even get to see in action and that's more or less where DDR4 kicked off, so maybe it's like that.

Also, is anyone else having a weird feeling of deja vu when reading 'DDR4-3200', like back to the days of DDR-400 / DDR-3200 / PC-3200? No? Just me I guess

 

[Hotrod2go]

Those ultra high memory bandwidth speeds are in effect just clever marketing to impress end users & thus potentially, future customers. They were making & selling DDR3-2400 back in the day but were quite expensive, not to mention how only quality motherboards could boot with it.
I mean seriously, the highest DDR4 speeds you can buy at least on the ever popular newegg site is 5333 at the moment & they are only 16GB kits with 1.6v needed! Not only that but think of the load on the IMC.
So you see my point about how crazy it is to let a motherboard indicate its capable of 7800! just pure marketing designed to impress.

 

[IntelUser2000]

It's just for overclockers nothing else. Like with Liquid Nitrogen you might be able to get them that high.

 

[Shmee]

Just because the setting is in the BIOS, does not mean it will work. They just are giving people a large range of frequency options. Most DDR4 frequencies should be between 3200 and 4000, I suspect, or at least for Ryzen. You can also tweak the voltage and the timings. That said, when entering in different values, be sure to check for stability.