G.SKILL Hits 4500MHz With All-New Trident Z DDR4-4333MHz 16GB Memory Kit (betanews.com)

BrianFagioli quotes a report from BetaNews: G.SKILL is a respected RAM maker, and the company is constantly pushing the envelope. Today, it announced a new DDR4-4333MHz 16GB Memory Kit (2x8GB) -- the first ever. While that alone is very cool, the company is bragging about what it accomplished with it -- an overclock that hit 4500MHz using an Intel Core i5-7600K processor paired with an ASUS ROG Maximus IX Apex motherboard. Pricing and availability for this kit is unknown at this time. With that said, it will probably be quite expensive. What we do know, however, its that the insane overclock to 4500MHz is for real. This was achieved using timings of CL19-19-19-39 in dual channel, which resulted in read/write of 55/65GB/s and copy speed of 52GB/s.

Comments

Holy crap, betanews is still around?

[AbRASiON]

I had no idea.
Also that's some criminally fast memory, shame they are only 8GB sticks and shame it's about 70% more expensive than it was 7 months ago.

I'm literally not upgrading anything due to this, I can take 20% but this has become ridiculous. Count me out of the upgrade game.

Re: Holy crap, betanews is still around?

[F34nor]

Once you hit a level where your hardware does what you need the upgrade race becomes dumb. E.g. in two years lets say you'll have 120Hz binocular 4K goggles, what then?
 

RAM has caught up with CPU speeds?

[hackertourist]

Back in the old days, RAM was clocked at the same speed as the CPU, so RAM could be accessed with a minimum of wait cycles. Then speeds diverged, making various levels of cache necessary.
Does the advertised 4.2 GHz speed mean we're back to RAM that's synchronized with the CPU? Or is the issue more complex than that? The 19-19-19-39 timing mentioned suggests that it is, but TFA is light on detail.

Re:RAM has caught up with CPU speeds?

[Blaskowicz]

It's also 4.2 GHz "data speed" as multiple bits are sent on a single clock cycle, hence I think it's running at 1.05 GHz.

So let's say a 1ns cycle time and the timings suggest latency might be a bit under 20-40 ns although who knows how the numbers have to be added up or not.

It adds up I think, consider the distance traveled, memory controller and CPU memory hierarchy the CPU-to-RAM latency may be something like 50 to 70 ns very roughly.

L1 cache still is well over 10x faster.

Re:RAM has caught up with CPU speeds?

[willy_me]

Then speeds diverged, making various levels of cache necessary.

It is not the difference in clock rate that necessitated the use of cache, it is the latency. The physical constraints of having memory located on a DIMM external to the CPU result in unavoidable latency. Once you implement a cache to get around the latency, the CPU speed and memory speed are no longer linked. Introducing memory that runs at the same speed does nothing to change this - you are still using a cache to avoid the latency.

Re:AMD?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

This kit is only going to get that speed on one very specific ASUS Maximus Apex motherboard, which is Intel specific.

Re:This is an ad and Slashdot keeps sinking.

[drinkypoo]

I've been using G.Skill memory modules in my builds for the last 10+ years. Never had a problem with them.

I bought two dimms and then I bought two more dimms and then my first two dimms BOTH went bad. However, G-Skill replaced them rapidly and graciously with the precise same P/N and I had no downtime, just time with half the RAM. I strongly suggest the same route to others. Buy your second pair of DIMMs later so they may have come from a different batch :)

A small correction

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

G.Skill does not manufacture the memory dies, it purchases the memory dies and assembles them into a DIMM memory module ready for sale to customers - Wikipedia.

Which means that technically they are assembling memory modules, instead of producing them from start to finish.

There are just four companies in the world which actually produce memory chips and they are: Micron (Crucial), Samsung, Hynix, and Toshiba.

Re:AMD?

[wjcofkc]

The very first sentence in the article talks about AMD Ryzen taking advantage of DDR4 on the AM4 chipset platform. The only reference to the i5 is a statement that an i5 platform was used to overclock the memory to 4500Mhz. At the end of the article the question is posed as to how much this type of kit will cost while also referring again the 4500Mhz overlocking.

So it's basically awkwardly written article with a summary that is trying its best.

I just wonder why they used an i5 setup for the overclocking and not an i7 (or Ryzen). I suppose there must be some super special i5 only motherboard out there that makes it possible? This should have be explained in the article.

Re:AMD?

[DontBeAMoran]

Fuck Intel and AMD, I'm going to add this to my ATmega328P!

Re:AMD?

[Khyber]

Please. I can take the same memory to another motherboard and fuck with the bus manually to overclock it. Don't you know how to bit-bang-bus, old timer?

meh

[JustNiz]

Wake me up when RAM speed has any noticeable effect on real world performance.

Besides,all they're doing to get this, is overclocking standard slower speed memory on a tester then binning the individual chips accordingly. You aren't getting RAM that was actually made to go this fast, whcih brings a LOT of reliability questions up.

Personally I'd rather have good reliability than a slightly higher score on benchmarks that you'll never notice in real life.