My Acer Aspire 5 laptop RAM is maxed at 20GB DDR4 2400. Would a DDR5 laptop load NI Session software any faster? I know there are many other variables.
General computer performance depends on more factors. It should go without saying that DDR5 in general is faster than DDR4 (try doing a Google on Is DDR5 faster than DDR4?). So what speed increase that you can expect will both depend on what is your present system bottleneck and what will be the new system bottleneck.
From a general observation then one thing that has a huge impact on load speed is your chosen system hard disc interface and the type of disc. You will get the absolute best result by having a system with a quality board and chips set with the fastest PCI-E (5) NVME interface possible and same on the attached hard drive - fastest PCI-E (5) NVME attached storage.
Also then you will see considerable performance and quality differences between PCI-E NVME attached storage (SSD hard disks).
Please notice that at some point then computer tech discussions becomes like discussions about religion so ask different people and you will often get different answers.
At the moment then my own advice is to get a system with a quality board and chips set with PCI-E 5 NVME interface for M2 SSD hard disk and then use a Kingston FURY Renegade G5 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (often seen with good quality - great speed - fair price combination , but check your options !). Then for DDR5 RAM use quality RAM that performs well with a reasonable price point. (all computer tech has level where price raise sharply compared to the perceived benefit of the investment).
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You are very welcome. 🙂
I myself am using previous generation before present Kingston FURY Renegade G4 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD drives for both system drive and for N.I. Kontakt library Content and I think that it performs really well. Of course it is an investment so I have upgraded my desktop system more times because I did not have the money to buy the drives to start with. If buying a laptop then of course it is best to know in advance what you are going for and you will also want a model with e.g. two NVME drive slots and upgrade capability so that you do not need to take the computer apart to upgrade. Also then NVME drive slots might not necessarily be same speed , like one is PCI-E 5 and the other is PCI-E 4 because of the number of PCI-E lanes needed for these speeds , but as soon as you have the NVME slots and upgrade capability then you can upgrade drives later (though availability of all upgrades might not last). PCI-E NVME port speed depends on the system board so you can not upgrade the ports as such but even PCI-E 4 NVME attached storage is fast. I upgraded a brand new laptop for a friend a while back where he bought a computer on offer that had one NVME SSD and not enough RAM, so we quadrupled the RAM from 8 GB to 32 GB and upgraded the NVME SSD it came with (system drive) to a far better one and then used the old one as secondary internal storage. Of course in your case then you if you made a similar choice then for your use you might find that you would want a faster and larger drive for secondary internal storage also.
Thank you for such a full answer
I reckon I should talk to a specialist computer shop, as well as read your post several times.
Yes , well , a general observation is that what you need of course also depends on your personal expectations for your acquisitions. And also then there is always a price to pay. So first one must find out what one can/want to spend and then one should adjust expectations to what one can afford. Then of course you are right , then both to find the best product and the best deal then when/if needed then it is always a good idea to consult people with tech knowledge like friends , family , on-line fora and so on.
Actually the answer provided is short of 1 very important point
DDR5 and DDR4 are keyed differently, meaning DDR5 will not fit in a DDR4 slot.
So this isn't even an option for you if you are wishing to swap out for faster RAM
You're right about DDR5 not fitting a DDR4 slot. I'm thinking about whether to upgrade my 2020 DDR4 laptop with a faster C: or buy a DDR5 laptop.
The question of upgrading DDR4 were never asked and of course since when have you been able to put a newer generation DDR RAM into an older generation DDR RAM slot (?). Question was "Is DDR5 faster than DDR4?" and specifically mentions "a DDR5 laptop" which IMO is to be interpreted as a laptop that uses DDR5.
Also as can be seen from my initial answer then I don't think dwelling on RAM speed difference is the first thing to do , I'd rather look at getting fast PCI-E 4/5 NVME (SSD M2) drives first and then look at the RAM speed after that.
Mind you, if people have a computer that use DDR4 then it is less likely (than if using DDR5) that they have any PCI-E NVME M2 SSD interface on their board and if they have then it would be rather slow (I think that motherboards using DDR4 mostly/usually has only NVMe PCIe 3.0 ?) and I think that speed doubles for each PCIe SSD generation . Check this article to see : PCIe SSD generations: Performance and why it matters
But then when once you have PCIe Gen 4 or PCIe Gen 5 SSD then of course you might start wondering about looking at other theoretical bottle necks including RAM speed.
With respect to RAM sockets then a fact is that in transition periods then some Intel chips set usually will support both latest and previous generation RAM. And though this for DDR4 and DDR5 did result in more boards with same chips set and different RAM "Z690 motherboards will support both DDR4 and DDR5 memory" then when it was DDR3 and DDR4 then it were seen that a motherboard that supported both e.g. DDR3 and DDR4 were made (ASRock B150M Combo-G). So motherboards that can use more types of RAM is theoretically possible.
My laptop has a 2TB Gen4 NvMe that I installed last week. Crucial scan says it can run Gen5, but I don't know whether Gen5 would be any faster than the Gen4.
I am not aware of all the details here , and even if I were then I am simply not equipped with enough practical knowledge to go into more 'hair splitting' scenarios. PCI-E gen 5 theoretically can be considerable faster than gen. 4 , ref. : PCIe SSD generations: Performance and why it matters . (for me to gain sufficiently practical knowledge then I would need to see a lot more PC upgrades than I do or be a whole lot richer for me to buy a lot more myself) [P.S. : I mentioned in an earlier post the limitations to PCI-E SSD speeds due to the number of PCI lanes required , so part of any equation regarding speed should also consider what else resources that eventually must be shared with and if the PCI lanes used must be shared with other resources (computer design dependent) , and what is plugged into the computer later , which in case again could decrease actual speeds experienced (a computer does not have unlimited resources not even if having multiple cores.)]
However once you have reached a speed such as PCI-E gen 4 NVME (on both interface and drive ?) then I would also begin to look at/check actual drive speed and actual drive performance. For me the Kingston FURY Renegade G5 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD , strikes a great balance between good quality, great speed/performance and fair price , but this is a personal opinion. It should be understood that not all drives have equal characteristics so you must check what you are interested in and then choose what you yourself have confidence in and then take it from there . How well that the drive of your choice perform and how much real speed performance that your drive will get if you change the slot it sits in to a gen 5 that I could not say. You yourself can do a series of real world tests to explore your own drives. But still as I have suggested more times in the above then once you have taken care of the drive speed then you can go hunt for other bottlenecks.
Also , just to be clear then I am not suggesting that drive is always the bottleneck to start with , I am merely suggesting that at this particular point in history then the hard drive speed often is not rated as important enough - though I am sure that more or less all regular users here already am aware of this then many less experienced users are not.
