Even the basic DDR5 specifications, at around 4,800 MHz, are faster than all but the best DDR4 kits, but they may be far from reaching their full potential. Chinese memory maker Netac is aiming much higher with its experimental "ultra-high frequency" kits; how does a DDR5-10000 kit sound?

Netac is aiming for a 10,000 MHz (effective) memory kit with DDR5 memory (via ITHome, El Chapuzas Informatico). According to the company, it just received its first batch of DDR5 DRAM from Micron, a batch of MT60B2G8HB-48B ES:A RAM. This part number appears to correspond to the DRAM DDR5 16Gb kit.

Micron's DDR5 DRAM is officially rated at 3200-6400 MT/s, 1.1-1.8V, and is available up to 64Gb per chip; up to 64Gb of memory per DIMM may be available.

Samsung has successfully packed 512GB of DDR5 DRAM onto a single RAM stick. This is SSD-sized system memory, and even 32GB of DDR4 seems meager by comparison.

For Netac to exceed 10,000 MT/s (10,000 MHz effective), it would have to push Micron's considerably, which would require very loose timing and high voltage. But it is not impossible; DDR4 can now reach more than twice the "stock" speeds.

Memory kit manufacturers are all trying to push DDR5 memory to its limits with each new memory kit, and there will likely be a race to get DDR5-10000 kits out and win accolades. Memory manufacturers, especially Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix, also want to be the chip of choice for high performance RAM kits like Samsung's infamous B-die DDR4, and will no doubt offer higher performance chips as time goes on.

Gaming workloads require tighter timing and a stronger relationship between memory speed and memory controllers in the CPU. None of the current AMD or Intel chips are adequate; AMD's first DDR5-capable chip will appear in the Zen 4 architecture, due in 2022, and Intel has confirmed that both DDR5 and DDR4 memory support will appear later this year in Intel Alder Lake processors later this year.