Memory Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 60 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for memory. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

For those building your own server around the new Intel Xeon 6 "Granite Rapids" or AMD EPYC 9005 "Turin" platforms and using DDR5-6000/DDR5-6400 memory (or the interesting MRDIMM-8000 memory with Xeon 6 P), one of the factors you need to be much more mindful about than in the past is that at least the initial generation of DDR5-6000+ memory is running much hotter than prior server memory. There's been guidance from Intel and AMD as well as sever vendors about the thermal considerations with DDR5-6000/DDR5-6400 and extra precautions. Here's a look at the DDR5-6000 thermals on a recent AMD EPYC 9655 Turin server build and then taming the DDR5 server memory modules using Corsair Vengeance Airflow Memory Cooling Fans.

As I wrote about last week within the Supermicro H13SSL-N EPYC Turin motherboard review, one of the factors leading me to purchasing that EPYC 9005 series motherboard was that this board offered support for full 12 channel DDR5-6000 memory performance compared to some of the other lower-cost Socket SP5 motherboards offering just 8 memory channels. For those wanting to quantify the performance difference between eight and twelve memory channels with AMD EPYC 9005 "Turin" processors, here are some benchmarks for showing the workloads that can really benefit from all 12 memory channels and other workloads where eight memory channels can be largely sufficient if looking to minimize costs.

Earlier this year Micron announced the Crucial Pro DDR5-6000 memory for AMD and Intel desktops and catering to gamers. With the newest AMD Ryzen 9000 series (Zen 5) and Intel Core Ultra Series 2 (Arrow Lake) processors out there and enjoying even faster memory, today Micron announced the Crucial Pro DDR5-6400 memory kits for greater performance. In advance of today's launch I have been testing the Crucial Pro DDR5-6400 32GB Kit (16GBx2) UDIMM Kit (CP2K16G64C38U5B) and have some initial benchmarks to share from the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Arrow Lake desktop.

Following last week's launch testing of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 5 245K Arrow Lake desktop processors, the next area I've been exploring deeper has been the DDR5 memory performance including with CUDIMMs. Here's a closer look at the Core Ultra 9 285K performance under Linux while testing several different sets of memory and running Ubuntu 24.10.

With the newly-launched AMD EPYC 9005 series processors continuing to use Socket SP5, there is drop-in upgrade compatibility for existing EPYC 9004 series motherboards/servers. That's assuming, of course, the vendor provides a BIOS update for enabling the EPYC 9005 series "Turin" support and there may be limitations on the maximum CPU/TDP supported given power/thermal constraints. But in going from EPYC 9004 to EPYC 9005 is also upping the maximum memory speed from DDR5-4800 to DDR5-6000 (or DDR5-6400 in validated configurations). For those trying to weigh the benefits of also upgrading your memory if on an existing EPYC 9004 Genoa/Bergamo server to DDR5-6000, here are some memory performance comparison benchmarks for some reference points.

Last week when kicking off the Intel Granite Rapids benchmarking with the Xeon 6980P processors there was particularly strong performance within HPC and other scientific computing workloads. Besides going now up to 128 cores / 256 threads per socket, another reason for the especially strong generational uplift and against the current AMD EPYC competition is Xeon 6 Granite Rapids introducing Multiplexed Rank memory support. One of the areas I've been eager to explore is quantifying the DDR5-6400 vs. MRDIMM 8800MT/s performance difference and this article is dedicated to looking at that memory performance impact for the Xeon 6900P series.

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.

With the new AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors the AGESA supports up to DDR5-8000 memory. With yesterday's testing of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review all of the tests were done at DDR5-6000 in matching with the Ryzen 7000 series and Intel Core 13th/14th Gen configurations. In this article today is an initial look at the DDR5-8000 performance with the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X while using Corsair Vengeance 2 x 16GB DDR5-8000 DIMMs (Corsair CMH32GX5M2X8000C36).

Crucial last week announced the launch of their newest Crucial DDR5 Pro Memory: Overclocking (OC) Edition in white heatspreader form. Crucial recently sent over a pair of these 2 x 16GB Crucial Pro DDR5-6000 UDIMM memory kits that we've been putting through the paces with Intel Core i9 14900K and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X systems. These new Crucial Pro DIMMs have been working out very well and align with the great quality we've long enjoyed from Crucial/Micron.

Back when looking at the AMD Ryzen 7000 series budget server performance last year, DDR5-4800 ECC UDIMMs were used with the ASRock Rack 1U4LW-B650/2L2T Ryzen server given that's what was broadly available at the time. Since then there's been more ECC UDIMMs coming to market above DDR5-4800 speeds. Recently I bought a pair of Kingston Server Premier 32GB 5600MT/s DDR5 ECC CL46 UDIMMs (KSM56E46BD8KM-32HA) and that's the focus of today's tests. For those curious if the faster ECC UDIMMs are worthwhile compared to the commonality of DDR5-4800 ECC UDIMMs, these benchmarks are for you.

With Intel's just-launched 5th Gen Xeon "Emerald Rapids" processors headlined by the 64-core Xeon Platinum 8592+, one of the key upgrades with these new server processors is now supporting DDR5-5600 memory compared to DDR5-4800 with Sapphire Rapids and also the memory frequency limit with AMD's EPYC Zen 4 processors. Here are some benchmarks of the flagship Xeon Platinum 8592+ when being tested with DDR5-4800 versus DDR5-5600 memory modules.

For those curious about the performance implications of using DDR5 ECC memory with AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors, I ran some benchmarks with ECC memory with the Error Correction Code functionality enabled and then disabled for evaluating the impact.

Corsair recently launched their line-up of 2 x 24GB DDR5 memory kits. With recent DDR5 memory prices falling, for as little as $215 USD it's now possible to obtain 48GB of DDR5-7000 RAM. With this being my first time testing a non-binary DDR5 memory kit, here is an initial look at the Corsair CMK48GX5M2B7000C40 compatibility and performance under Linux.

Micron recently sent over their latest Crucial 2 x 16GB DDR5-5200 and DDR5-5600 memory kits for testing with these low cost options for running with the latest Intel Alder Lake / Raptor Lake and AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors. Here's a look at how these affordable DDR5 memory options are performing and a look at the Linux workloads that can benefit from higher frequency memory.

In addition to the big performance uplift from AVX-512, up to 96 cores per socket, and other Zen 4 architectural improvements, also empowering the EPYC 9004 "Genoa" processors is the support for up to 12 channels of DDR5-4800 memory. In this article is a wide assortment of benchmarks looking at the AMD EPYC 9654 performance across varying numbers of populated DDR5 memory channels.

For those weighing whether to pursue the full eight memory channel configuration for the new Ryzen Threadripper 5000 series or starting out with just four or six memory modules, here are some reference benchmarks across four, six, and eight memory channels with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5965WX 24-core processor while running Ubuntu Linux.

PNY recently sent over their new XLR8 Gaming REV 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3600MHz memory that only lists compatibility with Microsoft Windows 11 and older, but fear not, it does work fine for Linux gamers and others looking for DDR4-3600 memory with RGB lighting and running well with the latest Intel and AMD processors.

Up to this point my Intel Alder Lake DDR5 memory testing on Linux has been limited to a set of DDR5-4400 modules given the very limited DDR5 availability. But with having recently received a DDR5-6000 kit, here is a look at how the Intel Core i9 12900K performs under Linux with memory speeds up to DDR5-6000 and running a memory scaling comparison from 3000 to 6000 MT/s.

Given current memory pricing and extremely limited availability of DDR5 memory modules, many Phoronix readers have been requesting DDR4 vs. DDR5 memory benchmarks for Alder Lake on Linux. After picking up a DDR4 Z690 motherboard, here are some reference benchmarks between DDR4 and DDR5 when testing with the Core i5 12600K on Ubuntu Linux in a variety of real-world workloads.

For those wondering if upgrading your RAM to higher frequency DIMMs is worthwhile when moving to AMD X570 and a new Zen 2 processor like the Ryzen 9 3900X, here are some reference benchmarks at different frequencies while maintaining the same timings.

For those that may be looking at purchasing an AMD Threadripper this holiday season, especially with the recent price drops, here are some fresh memory tests on the Threadripper 1950X while running Debian GNU/Linux.

This week MSI finally released an updated BIOS for the X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM that we've been using for a majority of our Ryzen Linux benchmarks. With that motherboard improving memory compatibility and allowing us to finally run the board at higher DDR4 memory clock frequencies, I've run some fresh AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Ubuntu Linux benchmarks at various memory frequencies.

For those that may be thinking about picking up an Intel Kabylake processor and trying to justify if DDR4-2400 memory is worthwhile for your budget, or even faster DDR4 memory via XMP profiles / overclocking, here are some tests using a Kabylake CPU and testing DDR4 memory at frequencies from 1600MHz up to 3333MHz.

A few days ago I posted my first Core i7 6800K benchmarks under Ubuntu Linux compared to various other CPUs. Out of requests from some premium members, here are some straight-forward memory clocking tests of the i7-6800K on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with the Linux 4.8 kernel. Tests were done from dual-channel DDR4 up through quad-channel DDR4 at DDR4-3000MHz.

Our latest benchmarks of AMD's AM1 Platform this weekend is looking at the performance impact of the DDR3 memory frequency on the overall system performance while running Ubuntu Linux. The AMD Athlon 5350 APU was tested with DDR3 at 800MHz, 1066MHz, 1333MHz, and 1600MHz (the maximum for these current socketed Kabini APUs).

After the recent tests of AMD's Kaveri APU with DDR3-800MHz to DDR3-2133MHz Linux memory testing and following up with AMD Kaveri DDR3-2400MHz testing on Ubuntu Linux, many Phoronix readers followed up with a request of new memory testing done on the Intel side. In this article are benchmarks of a Core i5 Haswell CPU looking at the CPU and graphics performance impact with memory frequency scaling on Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel.

Earlier in the week I published benchmarks showing AMD Kaveri's DDR3-800MHz through DDR3-2133MHz system memory performance. Those results showed this latest-generation AMD APU craving -- and being able to take advantage of -- high memory frequencies. Many were curious how DDR3-2400MHz would fair with Kaveri so here's some benchmarks as we test out Kingston's HyperX Beast 8GB DDR3-2400MHz memory kit.

For those trying to skimp on a system memory purchase for a new AMD Kaveri system or just curious about the impact the system memory bandwidth has on the latest-generation APUs, here are some benchmarks looking at the overall system memory performance when testing all major DDR3 system memory speeds between DDR3-800MHz and DDR3-2133MHz.

With my purchase last month of the ASUS Zenbook Prime as a new Intel ultrabook for carrying out some development work while traveling, the only two traits of the system that I didn't like were the use of an Ivy Bridge processor over Haswell and that it had only 4GB of DDR3 system memory. Fortunately, the latter can be easily corrected and with the ultrabook order I bought a 8GB G.SKILL DDR3-1600MHz DIMM for this Core i7 system that I dual-loaded with Fedora 20 and Ubuntu Linux.

For starting a new week of Linux benchmarking at Phoronix, some more results to push along Monday morning are performance test results looking at Intel's Haswell Linux graphics performance when manipulating the DDR3 memory frequencies. These results show the impact of Intel Haswell graphics on Linux when running the system memory at DDR3-800, DDR3-1066, DDR3-1333, and DDR3-1600 MHz frequencies... The performance difference of the latest-generation Intel graphics may surprise you.