Building a beast! Help with my DDR5

MzDv1ne

I’ve got all my parts I will make a list below, my question is I’m using DDR5 because I did get the Z790 Asus maximus hero motherboard but when it comes to speed I have no idea where to begin I was told I shouldn’t overclock anything until I see how it runs first so I went with the 5200 MHz Corsair vengeance memory…… should I have gone with something faster like a 6000 or 6200 this is my first PC that I’ve built since the 90s……

My build

i9 12gen Alder Lake

Asus Rog Maximus z790 Hero

Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5200Mhz

Gigabyte Vision OC 3080 Ti 12Gb white

Asus Rog 1000w power supply

W.D black M.2 2TB

Seagate Barricuda 2TB Ssd

Asus Rog Strix 360mm water cooler white

Lian li Mesh 2 white

Windows 11

swsdc

@MzDv1ne,

You are planning on using an i9 12th gen CPU. I would recommend getting at least a 6000 MHz kit. Anything after 6000 MHz is still good but gets pricey quickly.

The difference in price between a DDR5-5200 kit and a 6000 kit from G.Skill Trident right now is about $20, whereas going from 6000 MHz to 6800 MHz is $106. The jump from 6000 MHz to 6800 MHz would only be a maximum performance gain of 10% with a more realistic gain somewhere between 3-5%

TL;DR get a 6000 MHz kit for roughly $20 more.

On a side note, I highly recommend you check out the Intel i7-13700k. Your Motherboard is compatible out of the box since it is a Z790. That board is also highly capable with good VRMs for overclocking. The 13700k is currently $380, or $120 less than the 12900k, and gets very similar performance. (Most of the time it actually wins.)

Rs199208

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/12278/building-a-beast-help-with-my-ddr5

that MB is capable of at the least 7200 with Hynix A die even with a 12th gen cpu. but its not always that simple with ddr5 on a 4 dimm MB this is why 2 dimm mb are best to run ddr5 over 6000 even up to 9000.

the XMP isn't as important as the actual dram manufacture because as you noted can easily OC and tighten the timings to blow away any XMP.

i was able to get the gskill 6400 A die hynix kit at MC for $219 using a newegg price match.

with 12900ks that kit literally booted into windows 11 at 7800 by only changing the dram speed that's all.

i ran it stable at 7200 tightened down to 45ns, could go higher and i will try that soon actually.

another good ram kit is gskill 5200 M die hynix at $125 which can do around 7000 give or take.

stay away from Samsung and Micron ddr5 memory. SK Hynix blows them away. these are the only 3 dram manufactures.

so if you have M or A die hynix you will be ok just limited by 4 dimm and 12th gen a little.

i like using TM5 with Absolute @antta777 config for stress testing the ram.

on the gkill heatsink label 82*M =M die 82*A=A die. for instance my 6400 is 820A and my 6600 is 820M.

you can pick and choose when at MC by looking through the cutout on back of retail box.