The era of DDR5 is almost officially here. It will not begin in earnest until the next generation of platforms, starting with Intel's Alder Lake CPUs and followed by AMD's Zen 4 stack. However, memory manufacturers are getting a head start by being the first to announce their commitment to DDR5; TeamGroup will begin selling DDR5 memory kits at the end of this month.

This is a 32GB DDR5-4800 memory kit consisting of a pair of 16GB modules with timings set to 40-40-40-77 at 1.1V. Faster DDR5 memory kits will eventually appear, but for its initial launch, TeamGroup is sticking to the final specifications set by JEDEC, the industry organization that sets memory speeds and timings.

For reference, the highest JEDEC specification for DDR4 memory is 3,200 MT/s. Nevertheless, memory manufacturers have developed faster memory kits, which have been adopted by AMD, Intel, and motherboard manufacturers. In the very high overclocking range, some DDR4 memory kits operate at 5,333 MT/s.

DDR5 starts at speeds not far behind the fastest and most expensive DDR4 memory on the market and goes up from there. At least one memory manufacturer (China-based Netac) has already teased a final DDR5-10000 kit to show the direction of the new era of RAM.

In addition to the increased bandwidth that DDR5 brings, another interesting aspect is on-die ECC (Error Correction Code). Until now, ECC has been mostly in the realm of datacenters and workstations where mission-critical workloads exist. DDR5 will bring the same benefits to consumer platforms. the topic of ECC memory and its absence in the consumer market has been discussed by Linux founder Linus Torvalds earlier this year led to accusations against Intel. [ECC is absolutely critical, and ECC availability is critical because Intel has helped kill the entire ECC industry through horribly bad market segmentation," Torvalds wrote.

That was, in fact, the best thing he said about Intel in his rant. He called Intel "lying bastards" and accused them of "shoving their shit down consumers' throats." Take a deep breath, Linus, ECC is about to become more widespread.

Intel's next-generation CPU Alder Lake and its accompanying 600 series platform will be the first consumer release to support DDR5 memory; TeamGroup has promised that its 32GB DDR5-4800 memory kit, currently in preparation and promises to be compatible with the DDR5-4800 and will be available at Amazon (US and Japan), Newegg, and various European retailers at the end of June. The price is set at $400.