> Absolute cheapest DDR5 128GB kit around is 2 sticks of 5600 64GB for $2k.

That's not far from the bundle deal above, once you subtract the $700 CPU.

If you really need 128GB the 5600 kit is fine. Having 208MB of total cache on the CPU means the real world difference between a 5600 kit and a slightly faster kit is negligible in most use cases.

If you don't need to upgrade then clearly don't force an upgrade right now. I just wanted to comment that $4K for 128GB of RAM is a very bad price right now, even with the current situation.

▲

throwup238 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> a slightly faster kit is negligible in most use cases

Does that “most use cases” caveat really apply to someone buying 128G of RAM? If I’m buying that much, it means I’m actually going to put it through its paces, unless it’s just there for huge reserved guest VM overhead.

	▲	Aurornis an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The 208MB of total cache on the CPU we’re discussing does a good job of reducing sensitivity to RAM speed differences on this platform. If you’re trying to run LLMs off of the CPU instead of the GPU then the RAM speed dictates a lot. It’s going to be slow mo matter what, though. Dual channel DDR5 just isn’t enough to run large LLMs that start to fill 128GB of RAM and the difference between 5600 and 6400 isn’t going to make it usable. If you’re just running a lot of VMs or doing a lot of mixed tasks that keep a lot of RAM occupied then you’d probably have a hard time measuring a difference between 5600 and 6400 if you tried with one of these X3D CPUs with a lot of cache. This is a frequent topic of discussion for gamers because some people obsess over optimizing their RAM speed and timings and pay large premiums for RAM with CAS latency of 28 instead of 36. Then they see benchmarks showing 1-2% differences in games or even most productivity apps and realize they would have been better spending that extra money on the next faster GPU or CPU or other part.

▲

magicalhippo 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> I just wanted to comment that $4K for 128GB of RAM is a very bad price right now

Oh absolutely. Just mentioned it since I was very close to buying it back then, and now it's completely bonkers.

That bundle deal is quite well priced all things considered, it basically prices the memory where it was. Again, sadly no great bundle deals here.