# I'm looking for a z690 MB that supports 128gb of DDR5 5200Mhz or faster RAM.



## Nigel Andreola (Mar 24, 2022)

I bought an i9 12900k a while ago but am unable to find any MB that officially supports 128gb of DDR5 ram running at 5200MHz or faster. 5200MHz or higher appears to be ideal for optimal DAW performance. If you've built a machine that is running those specs, can you share with me the MB and RAM you are using? 

I'm currently running an i7 4930k with 64gb of quad channel ddr3. My new build will be a much awaited upgrade for me.


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## kenose (Mar 24, 2022)

Doesn't exist, because official 128gb DDR5 kits unfortunately don't exist— and if you try to slap two 64gb (2x32gb) kits together they will not run with XMP enabled, resulting in speeds of 2666mhz or so. DDR5 boards are also incredibly picky about RAM, so if there are inconsistencies between the kits the RAM may not work at all on some boards. 

Has to do with the 32gb sticks being dual rank instead of single rank. What will happen (hopefully) is eventually there will be 128gb kits that are 2x64gb DIMMs, which is how you'll be able to get those higher RAM speeds on DDR5 boards. Not really much information about when that will be available sadly.

If you want 128gb you have to go with a DDR4 board right now.


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## Nigel Andreola (Mar 24, 2022)

kenose said:


> Doesn't exist, because official 128gb DDR5 kits unfortunately don't exist— and if you try to slap two 64gb (2x32gb) kits together they will not run with XMP enabled, resulting in speeds of 2666mhz or so. DDR5 boards are also incredibly picky about RAM, so if there are inconsistencies between the kits the RAM may not work at all on some boards.
> 
> Has to do with the 32gb sticks being dual rank instead of single rank. What will happen (hopefully) is eventually there will be 128gb kits that are 2x64gb DIMMs, which is how you'll be able to get those higher RAM speeds on DDR5 boards. Not really much information about when that will be available sadly.
> 
> If you want 128gb you have to go with a DDR4 board right now.


Some of the z690 MB do appear to support four sticks of 4800Mhz 32gb, but MB support list say they will run at 4000mhz. Would they run at 2666Mhz with all four slots populated? Would that still yield better RAM performance than going with a DDR4 MB?

With my i7 4930k build, I bought four identical packs of ddr3 1600Mhz duel channel (2x8gb) kits. XMP 1600Mhz works perfectly and they are running in quad channel. There was 0 hassle setting it up. One would think newer stuff would be just as plug and play. It's disappointing to see it is not.


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## Pictus (Mar 24, 2022)

Try to ask at
https://www.overclock.net/threads/o...aily-memory-stability-thread.1794772/page-200


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## kenose (Mar 24, 2022)

Yeah unfortunately the DDR5 situation is a bit of a mess. Curious what motherboard are you seeing that says it will support 4x 32GB 2R DDR5 @ 4000?

EDIT: For example: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z690-AORUS-XTREME-rev-10/support#support-memsup notes that 4 32gb DIMMs will run at 3600 and recommends exact same "capacity, brand, speed, and chips of memory modules." ie— modules from the same kit. 






Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16959/intel-innovation-alder-lake-november-4th/4

All the 32gb DDR5 DIMMs currently available are dual rank— ie 2R. You can see that if you have 2 slots per channel filled, with dual rank modules, the MT/s is going to be 3600.

If you buy this: https://www.crucial.com/memory/ddr5...QPA3IvCyEab-tD__tORoCqo4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

You have a 32gb 2R DIMM that is marketed as 4800— but when you populate the board with 4 of these, your speed drops to 3600. And in practice, you might not even be able to achieve that— XMP on a lot of these DDR5 boards is extremely immature and sometimes doesn't work or isn't stable even with memory on the QVL list.

I tested this myself, with two 64gb kits of Corsair Vengeance 5200mhz on the ASUS ProArt Creator Z690 with 12900k— the system with 4 sticks was extremely unstable, and ran at 2666mhz. These boards are extremely temperamental about mixing RAM kits, and ASUS actually has a sticky on the ROG Z690 forums expressly stating they (And other mobo manufacturers) don't support doing this— because so many people were trying to mix 2x (2x16gb) kits to get 64gb when 64gb kits were not easily available.

You really need to be using one DIMM per channel to get the full dual channel bandwidth out of these DDR5 boards, otherwise I don't think it's really worth the price... and it doesn't seem like these issues are going to clear up anytime soon. It also doesn't seem like 64gb DIMMs are going to be released anytime soon either, and when they do I assume they will be extremely expensive and difficult to find.

If you need 128gb, I think grabbing a DDR4 board is 100% the way to go right now.


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## Nigel Andreola (Mar 24, 2022)

kenose said:


> Yeah unfortunately the DDR5 situation is a bit of a mess. Curious what motherboard are you seeing that says it will support 4x 32GB 2R DDR5 @ 4000?
> 
> EDIT: For example: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z690-AORUS-XTREME-rev-10/support#support-memsup notes that 4 32gb DIMMs will run at 3600 and recommends exact same "capacity, brand, speed, and chips of memory modules." ie— modules from the same kit.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info, and the article link. They are helpful. You saved me a lot of trouble! I was planning on possibly experimenting for myself with those exact same parts. 

I wonder if when Ryzen goes ddr5, they'll have a more smooth time of it, now that the MB manufactures have more experience dealing with the Intel release. I built my i7 4930k system at the tail end of life for ddr3. That's probably why I didn't have any issues.

The MEG Z690 ACE appears to support 4 sticks of 32gb 4800Mhz ddr5. According to the compatibility tab and the FAQ tab, even though these are 4800MHz rated, they will run at 4000Mhz when all four slots are populated. This is the part number of one of the compatible 32gb DIMMs. CT32G48C40U5.M16A1 These appear to be sold individually and in 2x32gb kits.


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## PaulieDC (Mar 24, 2022)

kenose said:


> Yeah unfortunately the DDR5 situation is a bit of a mess. Curious what motherboard are you seeing that says it will support 4x 32GB 2R DDR5 @ 4000?
> 
> EDIT: For example: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z690-AORUS-XTREME-rev-10/support#support-memsup notes that 4 32gb DIMMs will run at 3600 and recommends exact same "capacity, brand, speed, and chips of memory modules." ie— modules from the same kit.
> 
> ...


Everything said here is spot on. I had the same CPU and was going to embark on a new build. I've scrapped the project until later this year when the 13th Gen gets released and your mobos will be more compatible (i.e. drivers that actually work). With the 12th Gen you'll save a boatload of frustration and money if you go DDR4, or sell the CPU and wait for Fall. I found a game tester locally on OfferUp that swooped the CPU up.


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## kenose (Mar 24, 2022)

Nigel Andreola said:


> Thanks for the info, and the article link. They are helpful. You saved me a lot of trouble! I was planning on possibly experimenting for myself with those exact same parts.
> 
> I wonder if when Ryzen goes ddr5, they'll have a more smooth time of it, now that the MB manufactures have more experience dealing with the Intel release. I built my i7 4930k system at the tail end of life for ddr3. That's probably why I didn't have any issues.
> 
> The MEG Z690 ACE appears to support 4 sticks of 32gb 4800Mhz ddr5. According to the compatibility tab and the FAQ tab, even though these are 4800MHz rated, they will run at 4000Mhz when all four slots are populated. This is the part number of one of the compatible 32gb DIMMs. CT32G48C40U5.M16A1 These appear to be sold individually and in 2x32gb kits.


Yeah, I honestly don’t think I’ve seen a single case of someone running 128gb DDR5 @ 3600+ successfully.
That MSI FAQ is confusing because it doesn’t clarify if it is talking about 4x dual rank modules…only way to find out is order the parts I guess…

Luckily my workflow has shifted from needing 128gb of RAM, so I decided to just stick with the 64gb and see what happens in the future. The ProArt Creator has been great so far otherwise, and I needed a new system now so couldn’t wait for 13th gen.

I was sort of in the same boat as you— coming from an old Mac Pro 2013 trashcan 6 core system. I think if you go 12900k + 128gb DDR4 the performance increase is going to be pretty sweet.

It’s hard to tell how much the DDR5 bandwidth really impacts individual workflows. For example that Dawbench test that showed a big DDR5 performance increase over DDR4— they did that test on 64gb of RAM.

In my real life workflow tests with 64gb using actual sample libraries, I saturate the RAM long before I run out of CPU.

The Dawbench tests essentially showed dual channel 5200mhz DDR5 can match quad channel DDR4 (x299 platform) performance, but you have to be able to actually saturate the CPU— which with real libraries seems impossible with 64gb. So I don’t think these gains will come into play in real workflows until 128gb @ 5200+ is available.


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## CyberstormXIII (May 24, 2022)

As a notice, i've had 2x (2x32GB = 64GB kits) from Crucial run at 4000MHz on an ASUS Maximus Z690 Extreme Glacial (with bios 0702 and 1403) each kit should run at 4800 MHz separately, but together it will go down to 4000MHz.

Model: CT2K32G48C40U5 








Crucial 32GB DDR5-4800 UDIMM | CT32G48C40U5 | Crucial.com


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*Ean: *0649528905666

I have now returned them, and stick with my 32GB Corsair Dominator 6200MHz which now can actually run at 6200MHz with bios 1403.

I'd rather wait until they come with proper kits - and not worse off than DDR4.


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## Nigel Andreola (May 24, 2022)

CyberstormXIII said:


> As a notice, i've had 2x (2x32GB = 64GB kits) from Crucial run at 4000MHz on an ASUS Maximus Z690 Extreme Glacial (with bios 0702 and 1403) each kit should run at 4800 MHz separately, but together it will go down to 4000MHz.
> 
> Model: CT2K32G48C40U5
> 
> ...


Thank you. It is good to know it is possible to have two kits run together, even if it is slower than a single kit. I'm not sure why there are no 128gb kits available. I guess I'll just have to keep waiting.


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