Micron’s next DDR5 evolution – Crucial DDR5 Pro and Pro overclocking kits review with Teardown and OC

1 - Unboxing and design 2 - SPD information and heatsink test 3 - Teardown and PCB analysis 4 - Overclocking on Intel and AMD 5 - Benchmarks – XMP 6 - Benchmarks – OC 7 - Summary and conclusion

SPD information

As always, we find the most important information about the modules in the Serial Presence Detect (SPD). There is not much difference here between OC and non-OC, with the exception of the XMP and EXPO profiles of course. Please forgive me if I write “XMP” as a substitute in the following.

The part number, clock rate, serial number and production week from the sticker are confirmed here. We also find confirmation that these really are “D-Die” or “Rev D” memory chips. Since 8 memory chips are installed for 16 GB module capacity, we also know that they must be 16 Gbit chips. The new ICs are therefore called DDR5 Micron 16 Gbit Rev D. Why 16 Gbit Rev A and Rev G are now followed by Rev D is something only Micron can answer. Unfortunately, these ICs do not have integrated temperature sensors, which would be optional in the DDR5 standard.

The SPD Eeprom is a product from Montage Technology Group of the type SPD5118 and the PMIC (Power Management Integrated Circuit) is from Richtek Power with type PMIC5100. This is not an OC PMIC. The VDD and VDDQ voltage is therefore limited to a maximum of 1.435 V, even with the “Pro Overclocking” modules. At first this may seem disappointing, but later in the test we will see why this is irrelevant for these modules.

In addition to the XMP profile with the nominal clock rate of the kit with DDR5-6000 at timings 36-38-38-80 and 1.35 V VDD/VDDQ, the OC kit also has another profile with a slightly lower clock rate of DDR5-5600, the same timings 36-38-38-80 and only 1.25 V VDD/VDDQ. As a fallback for systems that cannot reach the maximum clock rate, a second, more conservative profile is always a welcome addition. Even if all profiles officially only support “1 DIMM per channel”, the fallback profile could offer just the right compromise between compatibility and stability for systems with several RAM modules per channel. Both profiles with identical settings are then available again in the EXPO variant, so that both Intel and AMD DDR5 mainboards can load them via their native standard.

The non OC kit also has 2 XMP profiles, once the advertised DDR5-5600 at timings 46-45-45-90 at 1.1 V VDD/VDDQ and additionally DDR5-5200 at timings 42-42-42-84 and also 1.1 V VDD/VDDQ. Both profiles are also available in EXPO version on the SPD.

Heatsink test

This time we use the Karhu RAM stress test for the temperature test, as Testmem5 becomes increasingly unreliable with DDR5 and the waste heat of the two tests is very similar. As usual, the modules are tested once completely passively and once again with a 2000 rpm 120 mm fan mounted directly on the modules. The warmer of the two modules is measured with a type K temperature sensor between the PCB and the heatspreader below the PMIC and the delta to the ambient temperature is calculated.

For the sake of clarity, the manufacturer and product names of the RAM kits have been abbreviated as follows:

• CDTR: Corsair Dominator Titanium RGB
• CDPR: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB
• TGDR: Teamgroup DELTA RGB
• CVR: Corsair Vengeance RGB
• CV: Corsair Vengeance
• GSTZ5R: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB
• CP: Crucial Pro
• CPOC: Crucial Pro Overclocking

In addition to the two kits with their fastest XMP profile, we also tested the “Pro OC” kit with the XMP profile of the non-OC kit, so that we have a direct comparison of the heat sinks. Although the cooler design is roughly comparable to that of the Corsair Vengeance modules, also with only two thin, curved aluminum halves, the Pro OC kit gets significantly warmer at DDR5-6000, especially with active cooling. This in turn could be due to the wedge shape of the heat sinks, which are rather suboptimal for heat exchange with direct airflow from above.

With identical clock rates, timings and voltages, the Pro OC Kit performs just as well as the normal Pro Kit and is in the midfield overall. Even if there are not many reserves left at higher voltages in a warm housing up to the normal DDR5 maximum temperature of 85 °C, we will see immediately during overclocking that these memory modules do not need that much voltage.