Ryzen 7000 Series – Is Faster Memory BETTER?? [5200MHz Vs 6000MHz]

So when we released our Ryzen 7000 series content, we had a few hiccups along the way. Our RTX 3090 died half way through testing comparison processors, which pushed us back about a week, we had issues with resizeable bar, but we got there in the end, but there was one small issue. We tested the likes of the Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 5 7600X using our Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB 5200MHz kit even though AMD sent us a shiny G.Skill 6000MHz kit that was made for AMD and apparently was the “sweet spot” for performance. Luckily that brings us to today, where we’re able to produce some more content, and see if going from 5200MHz to 6000MHz is really worth it. Slower Vs Faster Memory So scrolling through our YouTube comments and feedback across social media, saw quite a few people getting up in arms about the fact that we didn’t test using a 6000MHz kit, and being an honest person, I want to tell you why. Due to the issues we had, as mentioned, time was a bit, shall we say, restrictive, and because we already had testing data in our monumental spreadsheet for all of the Alder Lake processors that we’d already looked at, we continued and just used that data, which meant we only had to test the two new Ryzen processors using the same memory. Ryzen 7000 Our intention was to always re-test once we had more time, using 6000MHz memory, which brings us to today. While it’s not rocket science to say that 6000MHz memory is going to be faster than 5200MHz, it’s all about what kind of increase in performance we see, not only on the Ryzen 7000 series, but also on Intel’s 12th generation processors which is where things get a bit screwed up. AMD made it clear from the get-go that 6000MHz is the sweet spot, and while there are some brands releasing 7200MHz kits, it gets to a point where you have to ask if the juice is worth the squeeze. What I mean, is, if the extra money is really worth the extra performance, so hopefully, once we get through all these benchmarks, that’s something we can address, because DDR5 on the Alder Lake platform is slightly different. It’s more about the applications and games and what ones need bigger memory bandwidth, because latency isn’t really affected due to the memory controller on Alder Lake not being able to run with a 1:1 ratio. Sweet Spot So I think that’s going to throw up some interesting results and might not be as clear-cut as we think because between AMD having a “sweet spot” and Intel just thriving off of the fastest memory possible, there’s an argument between both ends of the spectrum, and of course, whether the extra cost with higher-end and higher speed kits is really worth it depending on the platform you’re on and if the extra performance is really there. Memory Used For the purposes of our tests, we used the following kits: Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 RGB 5200MHz (2x16GB) 36-38-38-74 1.25vG.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000MHz (2x16GB) 30-38-38-96 1.35v Video If you want to see our full video going through this, you can do so below. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Processor Test Systems Test System (AM5) Motherboard Changes Per Review Processor AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Review Buy Now GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (AM4) Motherboard Changes Per Review Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Review Buy Now GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (Z690) Motherboard MSI Z690 UnifyBIOS Version 7D28v17 Processor Changes Per Review Review Buy Now GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (Z590) Motherboard ASUS Maximus XIII HeroBIOS Version 1402 Review Buy Now Processor Changes Per Review GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Additional Hardware ElmorLabs PMD-USB Power Measurement Device With USB Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Software Used 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy (download)7-Zip (download)AIDA64 (download)Blender 3.3.0 (download)CapFrameX 1.6.9 (download)Cinebench R23 (download)Corona 1.3 (download)CPU-Z (download)Geekbench 5 (download)Google Octane 2.0 (link)GPU-Z (download)HWMonitor (download)Keyshot Viewer 11.2.1 (download)Mozilla Kraken 1.1 (link)PCMark 10 Express (download)Super PI 2.1 WP (download)V-Ray 5.00.20 (download)WebXPRT 4 (link)WPrime 2.11 (download) Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we’ve began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it’s not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do, however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. Assassin’s Creed ValhallaCyberpunk 2077F1 22Far Cry 6Forza Horizon 5Horizon Zero DawnMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2020Red Dead Redemption 2Shadow Of The Tomb RaiderWatch Dogs: Legion Resolutions 1080p (Full HD) Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content on simply reading total system power draw at both idle, we now have the ability thanks to the ElmorLabs PMD-USB device that allows us to measure power draw directly through the EPS power connectors. We test at idle, during gaming load, of which we measure drawing a run of Cyberpunk 2077 and during Cinebench R23 at load too. Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered during the same runs as when we measure power consumption, being during our Cyberpunk 2033 run, and during Cinebench R23 at load too. Super PI 2.1 WP Super PI is a single-threaded benchmark that calculates pi to a specific number of digits. It uses the Gauss-Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of a program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 232 digits Available now on Super PI. So starting with Super PI and straight away, we do see a decent amount of time shaved off the 7900X showing the impact that faster memory has on the 7900X. With the 7600X and the Intel Alder Lake CPUs, the gain in time wasn’t as significant, potentially pointing to a stronger memory controller on the 7900X. wPrime 2.11 wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. Available now on wPrime. Moving onto wPrime and looking at 32M and we actually see very little movement in this test, though to get a better picture, we have to look at the 1024M test, but even here, we see a real mixed bag of results. Firstly with the 7900X, we see a 5% increase in the time to calculate when using faster memory, while the 7600X sees a slight drop in calculation time and Intel results are skewed due to the E cores being enabled. 7-Zip 7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, but can read and write several others. Available now on 7-Zip. Looking at 7-Zip and again, we see a small gain in performance with a 6.9% uplift in the compression test, though only a 2% increase for decompression, both on the 7900X. Funnily enough, the 12900K actually saw the highest leap in performance in the decompression test of around 11% but again only around 2% in the decompression test. AIDA64 AIDA64 is a system information, diagnostics, and auditing application developed by FinalWire Ltd that runs on Windows, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Tizen, Chrome OS and Sailfish OS operating systems. It displays detailed information on the components of a computer. Available now on AIDA64. Moving onto AIDA64 and as you’d expect, the throughput when looking at read speeds increased dramatically by around 14% on the 12900K, the same on the 12600K and a slightly smaller 12% on the 7900X while the 7600X, while it did increase in performance, was only by 0.8%. The write test more than made up for it with the 7600X seeing a 16% increase in throughput, while this time the 7900X only saw an 8.7% increase in bandwidth which is still very much welcomed, while both the 12600K and 12900K saw similar gains between 13 to 14% over the 5200MHz kit. Looking at the copy speeds and it’s very similar to the read speeds with the Intels holding strong performance uplifts of 14 to 15%, while the 7900X increases its throughput by 12%, but the 7600X just struggles to increase to a substantial level, seeing only a 3.5% increase in performance. In terms of latency, both the 7900X and 12900K showed a similar decrease in milliseconds of around 14%, while both the 7600X and 12600K saw slightly lower decreases between 8 to 9%. Overall though, the 7900X managed to keep its lead ahead of the 12900K, and the same for the 7600X compared to the 12600K. Blender 3.3.0 Blender Open Data is a platform to collect, display and query the results of hardware and software performance tests - provided by the Blender community. Available now on Blender. For Blender, we saw that extra memory speed didn’t really assist in any significant way with only less than 3% increases on both Intel chips and less than a 0.5% uplift on both Ryzen 7000 CPUs. Cinebench R23 Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 23 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D's ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user. Best of all: It's free. Available now on Maxon. In Cinebench, we actually start to see a decrease when looking at single core performance though timings are likely whats at play here. In the multi-core testing, we actually start to see performance declining on the 7900X, and not much in it with the 7600X while both Intel CPUs showed a small performance increase with the faster kit, but only by less than 2%. Corona 1.3 Test and compare the performance of your CPU using this free benchmark application, which is built upon Corona Renderer 1.3. Available now on Corona Corona was another test where it seemed that the 7900X was potentially already at its peak performance as we see no change, while the 7600X sees a second shaved off, but could be treated as margin of error. In terms of the 12900K and 12600K we see a few more seconds shaved off of the render time, showing that they both still have some extra performance locked inside when paired with the right components. Looking at the rays per second, while we do see uplifts in performance on the 7000 series processors, it’s only by less than 1% on the 7900X and 1.8% on the 7600X while both the 12900K and 12600K see much bigger jumps of 4.8% and 6.7% respectively. Keyshot Viewer 11.2.1 KeyShot Viewer is a free, stand-alone desktop application that enables secure sharing of KeyShot scenes for interactive, photo-realistic 3D model viewing, presentation and configuration, using the same real-time ray tracing render engine as KeyShot to produce amazing visuals with speed and quality. Available now on KeyShot. In Keyshot Viewer, again we see both Intel chips with a bigger uplift in performance seeing the 12900K increase by around 2.4%, and the 12600K by 3.6%. So not massive numbers, but compared to the 0.2% uplift on the 7900X and 0.4% increase on the 7600X, it’s quite a sizeable difference. V-Ray 5.00.20 V-Ray® Benchmark is a free standalone application to test how fast your system renders. It’s simple, fast and includes three render engine test. Available now on Chaos. Moving over to V-Ray and wee again see a small uplift of 2.5% on the 12600K and 2.9% on the flagship 12900K while AMD’s 7600X only comes in ever so slightly better in performance that could be deemed margin of error, and the 7900X actually decreases in performance by 1.4%. Maybe AMD’s claim for 6000MHz memory being the sweet spot isn’t that sweet afterall. 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark tests your system's GPU and CPU performance by rendering extremely demanding game-like scenes in real-time. The faster the benchmark runs, the better your score. Now your quest begins. What can you do to get a better score? 3DMark is available on Steam here. Moving onto 3DMark Firestrike and we see some interesting results as the Physics score on the 12900K increases by just over 7% with the faster memory, which in turn sees the overall score also increase by 4.6% but that’s about as far as the good news goes as the 7900X sees a decrease in performance, the 7600X sees less than a 1% improvement and the 12600K the same. 3DMark Timespy Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for gaming PCs running Windows 10 and above only. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support the latest API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of modern graphics cards and is typically a good benchmark for mid-to-high-end hardware. Furthermore, Timespy Extreme is designed for 4K performance testing. 3DMark is available on Steam here. As we went into 3DMark Timespy we see a bit of a mixed bag with the 12900K seeing just under a 5% uplift with the faster memory, while the 12600K sees a much smaller increase of just under 1% but where things get really interesting is when we look at the Ryzen 7000 series, with the 7600X giving us a 4% uplift in the overall score, while the 7900X shoots forward by a whopping 10.8% when comparing to the slower 5200MHz memory. Geekbench 5 Geekbench 5 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures your system's performance with the press of a button. How will your mobile device or desktop computer perform when push comes to crunch? How will it compare to the newest devices on the market? Find out today with Geekbench 5. Available now on Geekbench. Looking at Geekbench and starting with the single core performance. The biggest uplift that we see again is from the 12900K with an improvement of 6.3% over the slower DDR5 kit while both AMD CPUs did see an uplift, but only by around 0.8% while the 12600K saw a slightly better but still fairly insignificant 1.3% when moving to the faster kit. When looking at the multi-core performance, we again see a strong gain from the 12900K of 6%, though the 7900X does fight back and manages to keep its lead over the 12900K with a 5.6% improvement with the faster DDR5 kit. The 7600X does give some improvements but only with a 2.2% uplift, while the 12600K sees much larger gains of just over 7%, further cementing its lead over the similar Ryzen CPU. PCMark 10 PCMark 10 features a comprehensive set of tests that cover the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. With a range of performance tests, custom run options, Battery Life Profile, and new Storage benchmarks, PCMark 10 is the complete PC benchmark for the modern office. Available now on Steam. In PCMark 10 we saw some impressive gains across the board, though some were better than others. While the 7600X saw a 5.2% increase in performance when moving to the faster kit, the 7900X saw a slightly better improvement of 7.6% which helps push past both Intel counterparts, though they did try fighting back with a 9.6% uplift on the 12600K and a massive 13% improvement for the 12900K, though the 7900X still ends up sitting just over 3% ahead of it. Google Octane 2.0 Octane 2.0 is a benchmark that measures a JavaScript engine’s performance by running a suite of tests representative of certain use cases in JavaScript applications. Google Octane now on Google Developers. As we move into Google Octane we again see some pretty strange results where on both the higher-end AMD and Intel parts, we actually see performance dipping lower on the faster 6000MHz kit, while the lower-end 7600X and 12600K see what is typical, with the faster memory providing better performance. Mozilla Kraken 1.1 Kraken is a JavaScript performance benchmark created by Mozilla that measures the speed of several different test cases extracted from real-world applications and libraries. Mozilla Kraken now on Github. For Mozilla Kraken, every CPU provided better performance with the faster memory kit, but of less than 2% across the board, it’s nothing that would ever really be noticeable, even on a longer form test that uses this benchmarks way of testing. WebXPRT 4 WebXPRT 4 is a browser benchmark that compares the performance of almost any web-enabled device. It contains HTML5, JavaScript, and WebAssembly-based scenarios created to mirror the tasks you do every day: Photo Enhancement, Organize Album Using AI, Stock Option Pricing, Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan using WASM, Sales Graphs, and Online Homework. Use WebXPRT to see exactly how well different devices handle real-world tasks. Mozilla Kraken now on Principled Technologies. Finally, when looking at WebXPRT, we see the 12600K giving us the biggest gain in performance of around 2.4% while the 7600X didn’t change with the faster memory. The 7900X and 12900K both increased their score by 1.5% and 2.3% respectively while the 7900X still holds onto the top spot. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the twelfth major instalment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Principally set in the years 872–878 AD, the game recounts a fictional story during the Viking expansions into the British Isles. Players control Eivor Varinsdottir, a Viking raider who becomes embroiled in the centuries-old conflict between the Assassin Brotherhood, who fight for peace and liberty, and the Templar Order, who desire peace through control. The modern-day portion of the story is set in the 21st century and follows Layla Hassan, an Assassin who relives Eivor's memories so as to find a way to save the Earth from destruction. Available now on UPlay. Moving onto games and starting with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla where in a strange turn of events, the 12600K manages to further secure its lead with a 1% uplift in performance which isn’t anything to really shout home about, but it’s more of a gain than what we saw from both the 7600X and 7900X. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? Available now on Steam. Looking at Cyberpunk 2077 and we see some pretty decent gains overall with the 7600X seeing the biggest uplift in performance of 8.3% which now puts it just ahead of the 7900X, though the uplift of 6.9% given to the 12600K manages to allow it to take the top spot between all processors tested today. F1 22 Enter the new era of Formula 1® in EA SPORTS™ F1® 22, the official video game of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™. Take your seat for a new season as redesigned cars and overhauled rules redefine race day, test your skills around the new Miami International Autodrome, and get a taste of the glitz and glamour in F1® Life. Race the stunning, new cars of the Formula 1® 2022 season with the authentic lineup of all 20 drivers and 10 teams, and take control of your race experience with new immersive or broadcast race sequences. Create a team and take them to the front of the grid with new depth in the acclaimed My Team career mode, race head-to-head in split-screen or multiplayer, or change the pace by taking supercars from some of the sport’s biggest names to the track in our all-new Pirelli Hot Laps feature. The official video game of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™: Available now on Steam. For F1 22 we saw a bit of an anomaly with the 12600K where it actually dropped around 15% in performance and multiple retests garnered similar results too, so I can only assume there is a bug of some kind between the game and the hardware. The other chips all saw small increases, with the 12900K seeing an uplift of 3.7% which still wasn’t enough to overthrow the 7900X which while it saw higher averages, actually saw the 1% lows drop slightly. Far Cry 6 Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo is intent on restoring his nation back to its former glory by any means, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps. Their oppressive rule has ignited a revolution. Available now on Ubisoft Connect. In FarCry 6, the 7900X and the two Intel CPUs all saw gains of around 2% when moving up to the faster memory, while the 7600X saw a much smaller gain of 0.8%, again pointing fingers at a potentially weaker memory controller. Forza Horizon 5 Your Ultimate Horizon Adventure awaits! Explore the vibrant and ever-evolving open world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars. This is Your Horizon Adventure Lead breathtaking expeditions across the vibrant and ever-evolving open world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars. This is a Diverse Open World Explore a world of striking contrast and beauty. Discover living deserts, lush jungles, historic cities, hidden ruins, pristine beaches, vast canyons and a towering snow-capped volcano. This is an dventurous Open World Immerse yourself in a deep campaign with hundreds of challenges that reward you for engaging in the activities you love. Meet new characters and choose the outcomes of their Horizon Story missions. Available now on Steam. As we look at Forza Horizon 5, we do see gains, but nothing of significance across both of the Ryzen 7000 series processors, while the 12600K sees the biggest improvement in performance of 4.3%, though the 12900K still tops our charts. Horizon Zero Dawn Experience Aloy’s entire legendary quest to unravel the mysteries of a world ruled by deadly Machines. An outcast from her tribe, the young hunter fights to uncover her past, discover her destiny… and stop a catastrophic threat to the future. Unleash devastating, tactical attacks against unique Machines and rival tribes as you explore an open world teeming with wildlife and danger. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action role-playing game – and this Complete Edition for PC includes the huge expansion The Frozen Wilds, featuring new lands, skills, weapons and Machines. Available now on Steam. The faster memory in Horizon Zero Dawn did make a small improvement of around 2% on both the 7900X and 7600X, but with framerates so high to start with, it’s not going to be something you’d notice. The bigger takeaway from the faster memory is how it ironed out the 1% lows and increased them to by up to 4.5% in some cases depending on the CPU. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 The Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition celebrates all the positive feedback, reviews and awards garnered, but it is also a “Thank You” to our fans – new and old – that have made Microsoft Flight Simulator such a phenomenon. Best of all, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year Edition will be available as a free update for existing players on PC. Available now on Steam. We saw pretty consistent increases in performance in Microsoft Flight Sim, with the 12900K actually seeing the biggest uplift of just under 7%, though now we actually see the 7600X overtaking the 7900X for that top spot, and again, some pretty sizeable increases in the 1% lows, such as the 7900X with a 10% gain. Red Dead Redemption 2 With all new graphical and technical enhancements for deeper immersion, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC takes full advantage of the power of the PC to bring every corner of this massive, rich and detailed world to life including increased draw distances; higher quality global illumination and ambient occlusion for improved day and night lighting; improved reflections and deeper, higher resolution shadows at all distances; tessellated tree textures and improved grass and fur textures for added realism in every plant and animal. Available now on Steam. Both the 12900K and 7900X saw a dip in performance on the averages in Red Dead Redemption, which the lower-end 7600X and 12600K saw an increase in performance when using the faster GSkill 6000MHz memory though all processors performed within the same margin of each other. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Available now on Steam. Shadow Of The Tomb Raider was another title where we saw a dip in performance with the faster memory on all processors tested, with the biggest drop evident on the 7600X. When new processors launch, it’s not completely out of the spectrum that performance could improve through updates that can harness more power, so we could expect this to change at a later date. Watch Dogs: Legion Build a resistance from virtually anyone you see as you hack, infiltrate, and fight to take back a near-future London that is facing its downfall. Welcome to the Resistance. Recruit and play as anyone in the city. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set. Hack armed drones, deploy spider-bots and take down enemies using an Augmented Reality Cloak. Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities. Take your recruits online and team up with your friends as you complete missions and challenging endgame content. Available now on UPlay. Finally, in Watch Dogs: Legion, we see the higher-end parts with the largest gains overall, with the 12900K coming in with an 8% increase in performance with the faster memory, and the 7900X following behind with a 5.7% uplift though it’s not enough to get close to 166FPS that we see from the 12900K with 6000MHz memory. Overall Game Average FPS Testing a variety of games allows you to see how a particular piece of hardware performs in that title, but with the ability to look at overall game averages and how they perform across all titles, we can extrapolate positioning of that hardware compared to similar hardware on the market. So with all the games tested, the easiest way to look at gaming performance is to look at the overall average FPS and I'll be honest. I never expected it to be this close with the 7600X and 12600K nigh on identical, albeit with the 7600X coming in 1FPS better in the 1% lows. The key metric that we have to look at here is the increase in performance moving from the 5600X to the 7600X where it leads by just over 8% which is nothing to grumble about, but I was just expecting something more. Cost Per Frame Looking at the cost per frame allows us to see where a particular product is positioned relative to the competition and previous generation products. By taking the price of the product and dividing it by the overall game average FPS, we have a simple formula that allows us to see if a product offers superior value for money. British Pound (GBP) It's quite interesting when looking at the cost per frame with the cost of the processor and memory added into the equation and we can significantly see that the 5200MHz memory on all processors offers up superior value for money in the UK with the 7600X and 7900X offering up similar costs on the 5200MHz memory, while the 6000MHz memory just adds what feels like unnecessary costs. US Dollars (USD) It’s exactly the same in the US market too with the 12600K actually offering slightly better value than the 7600X, so truthfully there isn’t much in it, but again, we see some big growth with the 6000MHz kits with all processors. Sweet Spot So the Ryzen 7000 series. I don’t want to talk too much about Ryzen 7000, because we said enough about all of that in our 7600X and 7900X content already, but what we set out to do today was to find out if the supposed “sweet spot” is worth it and as always there’s a metric ton of data that we’ve gone through and it all sounds pretty daunting because some figures are up, some are down and some just frankly don’t make sense. In an ideal world, faster-performing memory should see performance uplifts, but a lot of that comes down to if the game or application is written to harness the extra performance, and of course, how the individual processor handles faster speed memory too and one thing was extremely clear, and that is that the higher-end parts, from both AMD and Intel do harness that extra power a little bit better. In fact, on both the 12900K and the 7900X, we see a performance gain of around 1.9% while the lower-end 7600X sees a smaller increase of around 0.4% and the 12600K shows a dip in performance of around 1%. What is clear to see though is that the 7600X isn’t that far away from the 7900X and 12900K overall when looking at the average FPS, and the same for the overall comparison of 1% lows. A Worthy Investment? I made it pretty clear on my 7600X review that it’s an ok processor, but wasn’t good enough to fend off Intel’s 12600K for around the same price. I guess I was just expecting more for the money and that’s the crux of this whole feature. You’re being marketed to in the sense of buying faster memory, but you’re not exactly getting much more for it especially when the price increase from 5200MHz memory to 6000MHz memory is around 53% or so both in the UK and the US. I get it, AMD said pretty clearly that 6000MHz is the sweet spot, and I get their logic and thinking behind it as it offers good performance for a balanced budget when looking at every speed of DDR5 from 4800MHz to 7200MHz because, yep, it sits somewhere in the middle, so I get their argument, but on the same hand. 5200MHz is still more than enough, if you’re willing to lose 1.9% in performance but save over 50% from a value standpoint. My big argument is that the 53% saved as an average, could be better spent in other areas, like buying the 7700X instead of the 7600X which is only 33% more expensive or buying a faster SSD, or putting the money towards a better GPU or something. What I’m trying to get at is that you have options, and buying faster memory because it’s being branded as the sweet spot, only takes performance into consideration before you go for faster memory that ends up offering diminishing returns in terms of performance, but they never look at pricing while doing these calculations, and that’s where I think a lot has been lost in translation. Does Faster Memory Improve Performance? So the key takeaway here is that yes faster memory does give you improved performance. That’s a given, but does that make it worth it? Most definitely not, so buy what is within your budget, and use your budget wisely. However, we'd love to know, did the results surprise you? What do you think about AMD claiming that 6000MHz is the sweet spot? Does it all now seem to be smoke and mirrors? I’m interested to see what you think!