I'm planning an upgrade from my current system, which has an RX 6800 XT, Core i5-10400, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, a Gigabyte H510M motherboard, and a Cooler Master MWE 750 V3 power supply. I'm considering a Ryzen 5 7600 with an Asus Prime A620M motherboard, but DDR5 is expensive where I live. Because of that, I may only be able to buy one 16GB DDR5 stick initially and add a second matching stick later. How much performance would I lose by running single-channel DDR5 temporarily, and would it make more sense to stay with a dual-channel DDR4 platform instead?
2 Answers
The performance hit from single-channel DDR5 is often fairly small—roughly 5% in many situations—but it can be larger in some CPU-limited games. The Ryzen 5 7600 and AM5 platform are still a better long-term upgrade path than investing in an older DDR4 setup, especially if you intend to upgrade the memory soon.
A single DDR5 stick will usually reduce gaming performance by around 5–10%, depending on the game and how memory-sensitive it is. If a 2x8GB kit costs about the same as one 16GB module, dual channel would be preferable, but buying one 16GB stick now and adding a matching module later is a reasonable temporary solution. Try to buy the same model and speed for the second stick.
DDR5 prices are quite high where I live, so I’m not planning to run single-channel memory permanently. I’d add another 16GB stick as soon as I can.
That’s what I was thinking. The single-stick setup would only be temporary until I can afford a second matching module.