I bought a V-Color Manta XSky 32GB kit (2×16GB) rated at DDR5-6000 with CL30 timings for $380. I'm pairing it with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and started wondering whether choosing DDR5 was the right move. The 7800X3D was surprisingly affordable, while systems using somewhat slower DDR4-compatible CPUs seemed to cost even more overall. How badly did I overpay, if at all?
3 Answers
Building a completely different platform just to save a little money on DDR4 usually doesn’t make much sense. The 7800X3D requires DDR5, and starting with AM5 gives you a better-performing system and a potential upgrade path. The only obvious alternative would have been buying less memory, such as 16GB, but 32GB is the more sensible capacity for a new gaming PC.
The memory specifications are a great match for an AM5 system, and $380 is expensive in normal conditions, but current pricing for a 32GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit can be even higher. Based on the prices people are seeing right now, it sounds like a reasonable deal rather than a major mistake.
That’s a good price for those specifications at the moment. DDR5-6000 with CL30 is generally considered a strong choice for the 7800X3D, so the kit itself isn’t a bad purchase.
I was mainly wondering whether choosing a somewhat slower and slightly more expensive DDR4-compatible CPU would have made DDR4 the obvious choice, but it sounds like staying with the 7800X3D and DDR5 was reasonable.