G.Skill RAM Makes History With Blistering Overclock To DDR5-12054 On Air

G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5 memory modules on a weaved black surface.
Mark our words, this will be the year that we'll finally see a DDR5-10000 (or faster) memory kit offered at retail. It's only a matter of time, especially now that Clock Unbuffered Dual Inline Memory Modules (CUDIMMs) have entered the chat. In the meantime, we're seeing some amazing overclocks, including a DDR5 memory module scorching past DDR5-12000 without the aid of any exotic cooling.

To be clear, we've seen a bunch of memory records skyrocket to DDR5-12000 and beyond, with the top speed to beat sitting at just shy of DDR5-12698. However, these have all been achieved using extreme cooling methods. The top overclock rankings on HWBOT are overwhelmingly represented by the use of liquid nitrogen (LN2), with dry ice sneaking into the conversation as well.

G.Skill Trident Z5 RAM in a motherboard.
Look ma, no LN2! (Source: HWBOT via speed.fastest)

Now, however, we're starting to see some blistering milestones achieved on air cooling (for the RAM). That includes two new "historical overclock achievements" achieved on G.Skill's Trident Z5 DDR5 memory modules. The faster of the two, set at DDR5-12054, was achieved by "speed.fastest," an extreme overclocker who hails from Indonesia. Using only air for cooling, speed.fastest accomplished the feat in a test system with an ASUS ROG Z890 Apex motherboard and Intel Core Ultra 298K processor.

Hot on his heels, overclock "saltycroissant" from Canada was able to ramp the same memory to DDR5-12050 on an ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF motherboard paired with an Core Ultra 7 265K processor.

"In earlier overclock records on the Intel Z890 platform, only extreme sub-zero cooling with liquid nitrogen or dry ice was used to achieve overclock speeds of over DDR5-12000. These memory overclock records, achieved with CPU on water cooling and memory on air cooling, is an incredible milestone for the overclock community," G.Skill said.


This is the kind of wholesome 'only fans' content (get it?) we can get behind. More exciting, however, is the implication that retail-based DDR5-10000 kits can't be far behind. The memory modules used in these feats are of the CUDIMM variety, which include a clock driver chip directly on the PCB. The clock driver chip improves signal integrity for more stable speeds at the upper end, which in turn is paving the way for new speed tiers without having use exotic cooling methods.

Kudos to speed.fastest and saltycroissant on the achievements.