At this point in 2023, it’s difficult to recommend someone upgrading or building a new gaming machine to purchase DDR4. A year ago, one could make the case for DDR4 based on price. However, DDR5 and DDR4 have almost hit price parity and, perhaps DDR5 offers better value for money in the long run. The Crucial Pro Series kit is a great example of the value proposition of DDR5 today.
As to be expected, the prices vary between retailers, but for this set, you’re looking to pay R2,400, while a comparable DDR4 3000 kit will set you back R1,800. Indeed, R600 is a lot when you’re on a tight budget, but consider that it’s the end of the line for DDR4, whereas you can take your DDR5 memory with you for future upgrades.
Crucial, as a Micron brand, is of course, using Micron ICs on the memory, which results in a lower frequency ceiling and suboptimal memory timings. For instance, the memory has a high CAS Latency of 46, which in absolute raw latency makes it slower than DDR4 2133 CL15. So be aware that when you buy this memory, you’re doing it for its other properties, not its out-the-box performance.
Fortunately, overclocking this memory is quick and certainly worthwhile. Increase the operating voltage to 1.3V, select the DDR5 6000 ratio in your BIOS, and that’s it. You’ve increased performance by six percent in a few keystrokes and in seconds. To improve your performance further though, you’ll need some fine-tuning, and fortunately, we at NAG can assist you with that.
Please keep in mind that achieving the same frequency and timings for your particular memory is possible but not guaranteed. That said, you can reduce your CAS latency to 42, set TRP to 44 and TRCD to 44 (these are all your primary timings). The combination of lower primary timings and a higher 6,000 MT/s transfer rate will net you similar results to what we have in the benchmarks. As you can see, it’s possible to extract up to 20% more performance from simple tuning, and it can be done in seconds. This shows that the factory performance is not optimal, and one can’t help but feel Crucial left a lot of performance on the table needlessly.
As stated in the beginning, the Crucial memory is among the cheapest DDR5 kits you can buy in South Africa. However, just because something is the cheapest, it shouldn’t mean it must perform the worst. Fortunately, the memory’s respectable overclocking headroom and low price rescue the situation admirably. So, if you’re looking for the most affordable DDR5 5600 kit with moderate overclocking potential, consider the CRUCIAL Pro Series DDR5 memory.