Stop using DDR3 memory with your Skylake CPU, you’re damaging it

No seriously, DDR3 memory can be detrimental to the health of your brand spanking new Skylake CPU, and is very likely causing permanent damage.

Intel’s latest CPU family, the 14nm Skylake range, costs a pretty penny, so we thought we’d help spread the word that the use of DDR3 RAM will have a deleterious effect on it, and it’s all down to required voltages.

One of the biggest strengths of Skylake, besides its solid performance, is that it natively supports DDR4 memory.

Unfortunately, a side effect of this is that moving from an older range of Intel Core CPU (like Haswell, Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge) to Skylake will require a new LGA 1151 motherboard as well as DDR4 RAM. In fact, it’s the additional costs that will likely stay your hand when deciding whether or not to upgrade.

Knowing full well that it’s going to be a pricey endeavour, Intel has designed Skylake in such a way that it supports DDR3L memory, a much cheaper alternative to DDR4.

The reason Skylake supports DDR3L in addition to DDR4 is that they use relatively similar voltages: DDR4’s default voltage is 1.2V while DDR3L requires a voltage of 1.35V.

Neat as this sounds, a good deal of consumers are shying away from DDR3L because it’s nowhere near as fast as DDR4 memory, and is noticeably slower than DDR3 too, making it feel like a performance backslide.

That’s why a number of motherboard manufacturers are still offering support for DDR3 RAM anyway. So while your motherboard may allow you to use DDR3 RAM, the rather extreme voltages of DDR3 RAM (1.5V – 1.65V) is probably causing cumulative damage to your CPU.

According to a report by tom’s Hardware, in fact, your CPUs integrated memory controller (IMC) will probably burn out sooner or later.

So if you’re unwilling to sell your DDR3 RAM for slower DDR3L and you can’t quite afford DDR4 just yet, DDR4 being really rather expensive, we would suggest you hold onto your older CPU.