G.Skill Trident Z5 CK 48GB DDR5-9000 CUDIMMs

I was window shopping — watching listings, not really planning to buy. Then I saw it: 48GB G.Skill Trident Z5 CK, 9000 MT/s CUDIMMs, listed at $650. Threw them on the watchlist and moved on. Next morning the seller sent me an offer at $500. I countered at $400 fully expecting a no. He asked what board I was running, thought about it, and said let’s do it. Then he paid an extra $100 out of pocket to upgrade my shipping to expedited. Didn’t even ask.

CUDIMMs put a clock driver right on the stick, re-buffering the clock signal so the memory controller can push frequencies a standard UDIMM can’t touch — same idea as server RDIMMs, adapted for consumer platforms. 9000 MT/s is about as fast as consumer DDR5 gets in 2026.

The Z890 Tomahawk is a 4-slot board, not the CUDIMM-optimized setup people recommend. Slapped them in anyway. They train, they’re stable at 8800 MT/s, and paired with the 285K I’m pulling ~132 GB/s read — getting close to what the 6-channel Dominus setup does, on two sticks of consumer memory.

48GB of 9000 MT/s CUDIMMs for $400. Sometimes eBay just works out.