AMD Ryzen 9 9950X DDR5-6000 / DDR5-6400 / DDR5-8000 Memory Performance

For those planning on upgrading to an AMD Ryzen 9 9900 series Zen 5 desktop for Linux use, here are some benchmarks I recently carried out of several different DDR5 memory kits with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X while looking at the Linux performance under a variety of different workloads.

As part of my ongoing AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Linux testing, up today are benchmark results for several different DDR5 memory kits. This is complementary and larger than the recent Ryzen 7 9700X DDR5-8000 memory tests. The memory kits tested for today's article included:

2 x 16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 F5-6000J3038F16G - This is the G.SKILL kit commonly used the past two years in many different Phoronix articles and used by a few systems in the lab. This 32GB DDR5-6000 memory kit currently retails for just about $113 USD and is also the kit that was used for all the launch-day Ryzen 9000 series comparisons. This GSKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB kit sports CL30-38-38-96 timings at 1.35V.

2 x 32GB DDR5-6400 CL32 CMK64GX5M2B6400C32 - With DDR5-6400 said to be the "sweet spot" for the Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 series, I bought this Corsair DDR5-6400 kit for testing. This 64GB DDR5-6400 kit retails for about $215 USD. This Corsair Vengeance CMK64GX5M2B6400C32 64GB kit has CL32-40-40-84 timings at 1.4V.

2 x 16GB DDR5-8000 CL36 CMH32GX5M2X8000C36 - This Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB kit allows for DDR5-8000 operation at CL36-48-48-98 timings at 1.5V. This kit retails for around $190 USD.

2 x 24GB DDR5-8000 CL38 CMP48GX5M2X8000C38 - This Corsair Dominator Titanium RGB 48GB kit allows for DDR5-8000 speeds at CL38-48-48-98 timings at 1.5V. This Corsair 48GB DDR5-8000 kit retails for around $270 USD.

The tests were carried out under Ubuntu Linux.

With DDR5 memory kit reviews not being a main focus at Phoronix, there are just these few higher-end kits for testing today which were purchased retail for benchmarking and use within the test systems. These benchmarks are mainly being done for reference purposes in helping users who may be on DDR5-6000 right now decide if it's worth upgrading to faster memory with the Ryzen 9000 series, if DDR5-6400 indeed is being a worthwhile sweet spot for Zen 5, and the workloads where DDR5-8000 can pay off even with the UCLK there running 1:2 rather than 1:1 at DDR5-6400 and lower.