The Evolution of DDR Memory Technology: A New Era with Elder Lake

As we approach the release of Intel's latest processor, the Elder Lake series, it's essential to understand the significant changes that come with this new architecture. One of the most notable advancements is the adoption of DDR5 memory technology, which promises to bring massive bandwidth and speed improvements to the table. However, as we know from past generations, simply introducing a new technology doesn't necessarily make it the best choice.

In fact, DDR5 might not be the best option for every user. The first generation kits will come with high latency, which can significantly impact performance. In contrast, DDR4 memory technology has been proven to be reliable and efficient in many applications. This raises an interesting question: what's the difference between DDR4 and DDR5? We dive deeper into this topic on our Boot Sequence channel, where we explore the differences between these two memory technologies.

The shift from DDR3 to DDR4 was a significant upgrade, offering improved bandwidth and speed. However, with the advent of Elder Lake, Intel has taken a massive leap by adopting PCIe Gen 5, just one generation after jumping to Gen 4. This might seem like a minor change, but it's a crucial aspect of the new architecture. The NVMe slot is still Gen 4, while the PCIe slots are now Gen 5, with 16 lanes that can be split between them. This provides a significant increase in bandwidth and performance.

However, this new era also brings another challenge: the need for a new socket. Intel has introduced the LGA 1700 socket, which requires a new cooler design to accommodate its increased size. This presents a significant problem for users who have existing coolers that don't fit the new socket. However, most major cooler manufacturers have announced LGA 1700 retrofit kits, which can be purchased separately or as part of a complete kit.

For those who are looking to upgrade their cooling solution, there's good news: many popular cooler brands offer LGA 1700-compatible solutions at an affordable price. Some coolers, like the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3, require new standoffs and spacers to make proper contact with the CPU, while others, like Corsair, provide a complete kit that includes everything needed for installation.

As we approach Q1 2022, the Elder Lake series is expected to bring significant competition to the market. AMD has already announced its Zen 3 CPUs, which will feature 3D V-Cache technology and potentially challenge Intel's dominance in the CPU market. With this new generation of processors, it remains to be seen whether Elder Lake will be able to overcome its limitations and deliver the performance we've come to expect from Intel.

In conclusion, the release of Elder Lake represents a significant milestone in the evolution of DDR memory technology and PCIe signaling. While DDR5 promises to bring improved performance and bandwidth, it's essential to consider the latency implications and compatibility issues that may arise. The adoption of PCIe Gen 5 also presents exciting opportunities for increased performance, but it's crucial to understand the nuances of this new technology.

Ultimately, as we navigate this new era of processors and memory technology, it's essential to stay informed and adapt to changing circumstances. We'll continue to monitor developments in the market and bring you in-depth analysis and reviews on our Boot Sequence channel. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell to stay up-to-date with the latest news and content.

For more information on DDR4 versus DDR5, be sure to check out our deep dive video on the topic. We'll also be sharing regular updates and insights into the world of Elder Lake processors, so don't miss a single one of our videos. Click here to see our latest video on hardware connects, where we explore the latest developments in the market.

Lastly, if you have any questions or comments about Elder Lake or DDR5, please feel free to leave them below. We'll do our best to address your concerns and provide more information on this exciting new technology.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat is up guys snows here with hardware canucks and uh well mike is taking a vacation right now and a bunch of exciting new things are about to be released so i need to make sure that you guys are up to date on intel's upcoming alder lake processors of course we can't talk about performance just yet but i still want to cover the unique way that all the lake works since it's unlike any previous x86 desktop cpu it has a new socket new memory compatibility challenges and well a lot more so we'll get into that right after a message from our sponsor take it away demontree the deepcool ak620 cpu cooler is a dual tower heatsink with six copper heat pipes and an attractive fin array to deliver competitive cooling performance while looking awesome it's surprisingly quiet at full load installation is hassle free and ram clearance is flexible if you move the fan check out the ak620 down below alright let's kick things right off with what makes alder lake so special and that is its core layout i'm gonna try to simplify this as much as possible in traditional cpu architectures you get multiples of the same cores if there's a task it gets assigned to one of these cores and boom that's it on the face of things this is a simple and straightforward design it just works and both amd and intel have been doing wonders with it but the processes in windows don't really fit into a one-size-fits-all solution for example things like gaming rendering and transcoding need a lot more performance thrown at them than basic windows background processes but current cpu designs treat them all pretty much equally or at least as equally as the windows scheduler allows for intel's solution in alderlake uses different types of cores on the same processor to address these varied loads intel calls these the performance or p cores and the efficient or e-cores the e-cores are based on the gracemont architecture which is basically a low-power atom design so think of them like a very simplified very picky single-threaded coprocessor living inside of the same processor as the bigger more powerful but less efficient performance cores or p cores now being one core and one thread you might think that the efficient cores are meant to handle only single threaded tasks but this isn't the case take for example a game most games are lightly threaded or need really high frequency for the best performance in that case the e cores are about the worst place for that thread to go that's because they're not designed to run at really high frequencies why well because higher frequencies usually mean higher voltages and that leads to higher power consumption but even if they're built for efficiency and not necessarily for speed these cores can still outperform a traditional skylake design while chugging down a lot less power and literally taking a quarter of the space on the die that's when compared to skylake cores and situations that need higher frequencies is where the performance cores step in these are based off of intel's new golden cove architecture and for intel golden cove is a massive step above cypress cove which was used in rocket lake so these golden cove cores first of all they're a lot less efficient and according to current rumors they're a whole lot less efficient but they do pack a bigger higher frequency punch with more cash a wider interface and just more of everything with elder lake you have up to eight of these performance cores and up to eight of the efficient cores since the p cores can be multi-threaded and the e cores are not well you can have up to 24 threads maximum so all this sounds great but the architecture is only half the battle here you still need a system that makes sure that tasks are assigned to the right type of course without that the whole approach is kind of useless why have different types of cores if they're all assigned the same thing well that's where intel's thread director steps in it's a hardware scheduler basically a microcontroller built into the cpu it monitors the cores and helps the os determine where to send its task so logically threads that need more performance are sent to the performance cores while anything deemed less critical and less likely to benefit from the p-cores is sent off to the e-course and if the p-cores are busy on another more critical task then medium tasks can be directed in real time to the efficient cores to free up some resources in this example you'll see high priority green colored tasks get processed by the performance cores while teal colored background tasks get forwarded to the e-course then when a higher priority vector instruction set comes up it gets higher priority on the p cores and that sometimes shifts some of the tasks over to the e-course of course this is in a perfect scenario and it'll be interesting to see what actually happens for performance i hope that intel releases this program for testing the thread director monitor so if you're rendering something and a background task like email syncing or network updates wants to run well those processes go off to the more efficient course the trick is however to determine which task should be the highest priority and that's why thread director is so important the most interesting thing about this is that unlike past hybrid cpu designs this one can actually distribute some higher load tasks like rendering to both the e and p cores at the same time that means that technically all 24 threads on intel's highest end cpu could be chewing away at the same thing but there's a caveat to all that the threat director is only here to give information and tell the os when a task is heavy or light it doesn't actually make the decision that job is done by the os and apparently according to intel we'll see the most benefit in windows 11 probably because microsoft wants everyone to upgrade asap unfortunately windows 11 is kind of off to a rough start in any case the cores themselves are just the tip of the iceberg and if we dig a little deeper there's one thing that might end up being a little bit confusing to first time buyers that's alder lake's compatibility with two different versions of memory ddr4 and ddr5 and this is not the first time that intel does this the same thing happened with the original skylake processors and the intel transition from ddr3 to ddr4 back then z170 motherboards could support either ddr3 or ddr4 and of course azrock wanted to be the special kid and built this freak of nature that supported both in any case on this platform which is the 600 series for elder lake all the higher end z690 boards will exclusively use ddr5 while the mid tier and entry level ones will be a mix of ddr4 and ddr5 models so you'll have to pay attention to that by the way just because something is new and shiny and has insanely high frequencies doesn't mean that it's the best knowing what we know from past generations ddr5 might bring massive bandwidth to the table but the first generation kits will also come with insanely high latency so in the early days an alder lake cpu paired with ddr4 will likely beat an alder lake cpu with a ddr5 kit if you want to learn more about ddr4 versus ddr5 i did a pretty in-depth explanation of the differences between those two memory technologies on boot sequence my channel so go check that out in terms of connectivity well intel took a pretty huge leap by adopting pci egen 5 just one generation after jumping to gen 4. even though there aren't any devices that take advantage of it gen 5 is being built right into the architecture and it's a pretty big deal you know it doesn't have to be rolled out in a half-assed manner in a refresh sometimes down the road like it was with rocket lake right intel in any case you have 16 lanes of pcie gen 5 that can be split between pcie slots weirdly though the nvme slot is gen 4 and you got more gen 4 lanes and some gen 3 lanes from the chipsets so we got three generations of pcie in one motherboard it's pretty cool and lastly we got the last big thing that you need to know about elder lake and i'm pretty sure you've guessed it by now all of those changes to the you know the architecture the memory the pcie signaling well you're going to need a new socket and this socket is called the lga 1700 and of course i mean this is intel after all it will require a new cooler which sucks because good guy amd on their new am5 platform well they will support the coolers that worked with am4 so why can't intel do that there's only three millimeters of difference why so for elder lake the mounting holes needed to be pushed a few millimeters further apart so some back plates with studs that are fixed in place like the noctua one here won't be compatible but some adjustable back plates like this one that came with corsair's current and last generation aios actually fit if they're set to the widest position so the main roadblock to every single cooler here is how thick alder lake is and how it sits in the socket that additional height means even if a cooler's backplate fits it still needs new standoffs or spacers to make proper contact luckily pretty much every big name cooler manufacturers have announced lga 1700 retrofit kits for their existing products most are a few bucks so you don't have to buy a brand new cooler while others are free provided you pay for the shipping so some of those kits like the noctua one that i have here will have a whole new kit of parts and include everything like the back plate the spacers etc others like corsair will only need a set of new higher standoffs to accommodate for the higher ihs contact point and if you have an older corsair cooler they also sell a complete kit for 15 so yeah this is what you need to know to prep yourself for elder lake if that's what you want because i'll be honest on my boot sequence channel we've talked extensively about all the lake and all the rumors that came up and while it looks good on paper and while i want it to succeed to bring a little more competition to the market i'm afraid that q1 of 2022 will decide its faith amd is going to step up with their zen3 cpus with 3dv cache and if that beats elder lake then it's another generation wasted for intel what do you guys think let me know down below in any case that is pretty much it for this video don't forget to leave a like if you liked it stay tuned so you don't miss more all the late content because of course the chips are coming in and everything as usual you can click right here to see hardware connects his latest video right here to subscribe to the channel oh and here's a deep dive on ddr4 versus ddr5 and my channel this video comes from that channel too don't think that hardware connects ever had that many clickables on screen anyways guys byewhat is up guys snows here with hardware canucks and uh well mike is taking a vacation right now and a bunch of exciting new things are about to be released so i need to make sure that you guys are up to date on intel's upcoming alder lake processors of course we can't talk about performance just yet but i still want to cover the unique way that all the lake works since it's unlike any previous x86 desktop cpu it has a new socket new memory compatibility challenges and well a lot more so we'll get into that right after a message from our sponsor take it away demontree the deepcool ak620 cpu cooler is a dual tower heatsink with six copper heat pipes and an attractive fin array to deliver competitive cooling performance while looking awesome it's surprisingly quiet at full load installation is hassle free and ram clearance is flexible if you move the fan check out the ak620 down below alright let's kick things right off with what makes alder lake so special and that is its core layout i'm gonna try to simplify this as much as possible in traditional cpu architectures you get multiples of the same cores if there's a task it gets assigned to one of these cores and boom that's it on the face of things this is a simple and straightforward design it just works and both amd and intel have been doing wonders with it but the processes in windows don't really fit into a one-size-fits-all solution for example things like gaming rendering and transcoding need a lot more performance thrown at them than basic windows background processes but current cpu designs treat them all pretty much equally or at least as equally as the windows scheduler allows for intel's solution in alderlake uses different types of cores on the same processor to address these varied loads intel calls these the performance or p cores and the efficient or e-cores the e-cores are based on the gracemont architecture which is basically a low-power atom design so think of them like a very simplified very picky single-threaded coprocessor living inside of the same processor as the bigger more powerful but less efficient performance cores or p cores now being one core and one thread you might think that the efficient cores are meant to handle only single threaded tasks but this isn't the case take for example a game most games are lightly threaded or need really high frequency for the best performance in that case the e cores are about the worst place for that thread to go that's because they're not designed to run at really high frequencies why well because higher frequencies usually mean higher voltages and that leads to higher power consumption but even if they're built for efficiency and not necessarily for speed these cores can still outperform a traditional skylake design while chugging down a lot less power and literally taking a quarter of the space on the die that's when compared to skylake cores and situations that need higher frequencies is where the performance cores step in these are based off of intel's new golden cove architecture and for intel golden cove is a massive step above cypress cove which was used in rocket lake so these golden cove cores first of all they're a lot less efficient and according to current rumors they're a whole lot less efficient but they do pack a bigger higher frequency punch with more cash a wider interface and just more of everything with elder lake you have up to eight of these performance cores and up to eight of the efficient cores since the p cores can be multi-threaded and the e cores are not well you can have up to 24 threads maximum so all this sounds great but the architecture is only half the battle here you still need a system that makes sure that tasks are assigned to the right type of course without that the whole approach is kind of useless why have different types of cores if they're all assigned the same thing well that's where intel's thread director steps in it's a hardware scheduler basically a microcontroller built into the cpu it monitors the cores and helps the os determine where to send its task so logically threads that need more performance are sent to the performance cores while anything deemed less critical and less likely to benefit from the p-cores is sent off to the e-course and if the p-cores are busy on another more critical task then medium tasks can be directed in real time to the efficient cores to free up some resources in this example you'll see high priority green colored tasks get processed by the performance cores while teal colored background tasks get forwarded to the e-course then when a higher priority vector instruction set comes up it gets higher priority on the p cores and that sometimes shifts some of the tasks over to the e-course of course this is in a perfect scenario and it'll be interesting to see what actually happens for performance i hope that intel releases this program for testing the thread director monitor so if you're rendering something and a background task like email syncing or network updates wants to run well those processes go off to the more efficient course the trick is however to determine which task should be the highest priority and that's why thread director is so important the most interesting thing about this is that unlike past hybrid cpu designs this one can actually distribute some higher load tasks like rendering to both the e and p cores at the same time that means that technically all 24 threads on intel's highest end cpu could be chewing away at the same thing but there's a caveat to all that the threat director is only here to give information and tell the os when a task is heavy or light it doesn't actually make the decision that job is done by the os and apparently according to intel we'll see the most benefit in windows 11 probably because microsoft wants everyone to upgrade asap unfortunately windows 11 is kind of off to a rough start in any case the cores themselves are just the tip of the iceberg and if we dig a little deeper there's one thing that might end up being a little bit confusing to first time buyers that's alder lake's compatibility with two different versions of memory ddr4 and ddr5 and this is not the first time that intel does this the same thing happened with the original skylake processors and the intel transition from ddr3 to ddr4 back then z170 motherboards could support either ddr3 or ddr4 and of course azrock wanted to be the special kid and built this freak of nature that supported both in any case on this platform which is the 600 series for elder lake all the higher end z690 boards will exclusively use ddr5 while the mid tier and entry level ones will be a mix of ddr4 and ddr5 models so you'll have to pay attention to that by the way just because something is new and shiny and has insanely high frequencies doesn't mean that it's the best knowing what we know from past generations ddr5 might bring massive bandwidth to the table but the first generation kits will also come with insanely high latency so in the early days an alder lake cpu paired with ddr4 will likely beat an alder lake cpu with a ddr5 kit if you want to learn more about ddr4 versus ddr5 i did a pretty in-depth explanation of the differences between those two memory technologies on boot sequence my channel so go check that out in terms of connectivity well intel took a pretty huge leap by adopting pci egen 5 just one generation after jumping to gen 4. even though there aren't any devices that take advantage of it gen 5 is being built right into the architecture and it's a pretty big deal you know it doesn't have to be rolled out in a half-assed manner in a refresh sometimes down the road like it was with rocket lake right intel in any case you have 16 lanes of pcie gen 5 that can be split between pcie slots weirdly though the nvme slot is gen 4 and you got more gen 4 lanes and some gen 3 lanes from the chipsets so we got three generations of pcie in one motherboard it's pretty cool and lastly we got the last big thing that you need to know about elder lake and i'm pretty sure you've guessed it by now all of those changes to the you know the architecture the memory the pcie signaling well you're going to need a new socket and this socket is called the lga 1700 and of course i mean this is intel after all it will require a new cooler which sucks because good guy amd on their new am5 platform well they will support the coolers that worked with am4 so why can't intel do that there's only three millimeters of difference why so for elder lake the mounting holes needed to be pushed a few millimeters further apart so some back plates with studs that are fixed in place like the noctua one here won't be compatible but some adjustable back plates like this one that came with corsair's current and last generation aios actually fit if they're set to the widest position so the main roadblock to every single cooler here is how thick alder lake is and how it sits in the socket that additional height means even if a cooler's backplate fits it still needs new standoffs or spacers to make proper contact luckily pretty much every big name cooler manufacturers have announced lga 1700 retrofit kits for their existing products most are a few bucks so you don't have to buy a brand new cooler while others are free provided you pay for the shipping so some of those kits like the noctua one that i have here will have a whole new kit of parts and include everything like the back plate the spacers etc others like corsair will only need a set of new higher standoffs to accommodate for the higher ihs contact point and if you have an older corsair cooler they also sell a complete kit for 15 so yeah this is what you need to know to prep yourself for elder lake if that's what you want because i'll be honest on my boot sequence channel we've talked extensively about all the lake and all the rumors that came up and while it looks good on paper and while i want it to succeed to bring a little more competition to the market i'm afraid that q1 of 2022 will decide its faith amd is going to step up with their zen3 cpus with 3dv cache and if that beats elder lake then it's another generation wasted for intel what do you guys think let me know down below in any case that is pretty much it for this video don't forget to leave a like if you liked it stay tuned so you don't miss more all the late content because of course the chips are coming in and everything as usual you can click right here to see hardware connects his latest video right here to subscribe to the channel oh and here's a deep dive on ddr4 versus ddr5 and my channel this video comes from that channel too don't think that hardware connects ever had that many clickables on screen anyways guys bye\n"