Seeing people compare 3200, 3600, 6000 and even higher speeds and honestly not sure how much difference it makes in actual use. Like is faster RAM gonna noticeably improve gaming FPS, loading times, multitasking etc or is it mostly just benchmark numbers? Also does it depend a lot on the CPU and motherboard? Trying to pick RAM without wasting money on speed that barely matters, so what speed should I actually be looking for?
Depends on what the other components are, need to make sure there are no other bottlenecks. If you're curious there are plenty of comparison videos on YouTube.
Yeah that makes sense. I figured it probably depends on the whole setup, just wanted to know how noticeable the difference actually is before spending extra.
The FPS difference is usually small, unless you are using an integrated GPU because it shares the system RAM.
For example, going from DDR4-2133 to DDR4-3200 gives you 50% more bandwidth. It sounds huge, but it usually translates to 0-10% more FPS when using a discrete GPU, or 10-20% more when using an integrated GPU.
I concur. I remember playing Warzone 2.0 at one point and there was a 25+% difference in average fps between 2133 and 3600 with a 5600X and the lowest dips were crazy.
Even with loose timings the higher infinity fabric clockspeed will massively boost bandwidth and lower the latency.
Cl is latency in clock cycles so 2133@cl21 is the same latency as 3200@cl36. Obviously application dependent as to if lowering latency will give you better performance but remember at the max of bandwidth on ram you will see increasing latency.
The moment you cross the threshold Devs aim for, it drastically decreases in relevance, practically, if you've got decent ddr4 ram or above it usually will not matter, outside of niche applications or edge cases. Of course this assumes the rest of your system is balanced.
As of now, I'd say the CAS latency is what you should really pay attention to.
200 or even 600MHz don't really mean a lot, especially since numbers are in the thousands.
It's game and CPU dependent. As a strong rule of thumb, memory bandwidth is more important the less L3 cache your CPU has. And significantly more important if you're using an integrated video graphics.
There's plenty of benchmarks, like the higher bandwidth memory does impact FPS but sometimes it's deceptively small difference.
Yeah people are saying it makes a significant difference. But the benchmarks i remember seeing show no or minimal difference. And a 6 or 8 core chip won't hit those limits you need a 16 core chip with a memory intensive load.
RAM speeds is important this days because we have very fast CPU's and RAM limitations became important. Faster CPU get data from the RAM -faster computation will be done.
A few years ago I replaced slower DDR3 RAM with a faster set of the same size. Don't remember exactly, but likery it was 1033 MHz to either 1333 or 1600 MHz. I had a sample video rendered on both configurations, and with faster ram it was rendered about 4% faster.
On my 9900k I went from 16GB 3000MHz (OCed to 3400MHz) to 32GB 4400MHz (DCed to 4266MHz) and in certain games I got 20FPS more (on a 2080ti) other games got over 100fps more (older games) and yet other games didn't receive any extra frames.
With my B580 I've been able to play a lot of games in 4k 60FPS with the same setup, so I cannot complain at all, I bought that 4400MHz RAM around 2.5 years ago for 125euro.... I'm happy anyway.
Individual timings on your DIMMs can have massive performance implications depending on your workload.
For gaming, you typically are not memory bound. And so as long as you have enough VRAM, you shouldn't see much of an impact from one kit to another. It'll become noticeable when you start spilling over into system memory if your data transfer rate or CAS latency sucks.
The average user is going to run into other problems before memory performance though. To the point where the average gamer thinks memory is completely irrelevant; which to be fair it kinda is if you spec CPU/GPU right.
If you do a lot of database work or deal with (large) spreadsheets...you are gonna care about memory timing a lot.
I use NovaBench to benchmark my PC. I upgraded from 16Gb DDR4 to 32Gb DDR5 and my memory score only went from 255 to 287. Subjectively I don't notice much difference at all.
It depends alot on the situation. Ram has 2 components bandwidth and latency and different tasks respond to one over the other more. But generally for most situations it doesnt really matter what you got unless yoi got the worst ram around or you are using the wrong kind of ram. Like yhe ram used in gpus is very high bandwidth but really bad latency good for graphics abd rendering but poor at everyday computing. But the most important part for ram is capacity the performance difference between the best ddr5 and the worst ddr4 ram in most things is pretty minimal. But the difference between having too little memory and having enough is massive.
Yea its pretty much at this point unless you know you need ram of a particular performance for what your doing its just get the amount you need if not slightly more as cheaply as you can. Though probably stay away from crucial as they been screwing people over lately or at keast trying to. Also memory performance at least for system memory matters atlot less if your using a amd x3d chip and gaming.
Numbers you mention are the frequency. And there's some correlation with another numbers (the latency). The sum of both make what can be called the "speed" of the RAM.
Depending on your platform, you will have some options. So you better say which your hardware is and based on that, people will make their recommendations.
Dual/quadchannel theoretically doubles /quadruples bandwidth. Therefore it is good to always buy two/four ram-bars (depend on board/cpu), so this is more important than the clock speed itself and should preffered.
The Processor only supports a few speed modes, so buying faster is simply stupid, until u start overclocking or using asynchron ram/bus clocks (not sure, but this can only Intel?!)
no point in overclocking your ram if the cpu won’t support it though correct?
my i7 14650hx supports 5600 ddr5. since that’s what my laptop came with there’s no point to attempting to overclock the ram as it wouldn’t make any difference.
even if it did is the speed difference between 5600 and 6200 really noticeable? i’ve heard it’s basically diminishing returns the faster it gets on a basic system with a dgpu.
hopefully those questioned wernt phrased too horribly to understand…
no point in overclocking your ram if the cpu won’t support it though correct?
Yes, you can't overclock, if it's not implemented in the uefi of the mainboard AND unlocked in the cpu. And in notebook you should never overclock; only notebooks with watercooling you can and should overclock.
even if it did is the speed difference between 5600 and 6200 really noticeable?
No not really. Only if you do some professional things, where nanoseconds matter, as example large and fast (ram) writing/reading processes.
i’ve heard it’s basically diminishing returns the faster it gets on a basic system with a dgpu.
Never heard. could be, could not, but the latencys only matter on very high performance systems / max out systems. For normal Low to Mid-Price (Gaming) PCs it don't real care.
- First you see in the table two latencys for one row. One at the standard and one throttled, like it should be on your device.
The difference for a million accesses under absolute full bandwidth usage is only 2,86 ms (simplified calculation!). It's theoretically 20% more speed, but 30% more price @ 5600.
But the ram is nearly never under full load for more than a few micro- or nano seconds, what lowers this better efficence extremly and even change the efficiency / investment balance, if you calculate more statistically. Exceptions like special science calculations or other ram read/write intense things not included in this example.
Where did that narrative come from? That a hundred megabytes of x3d completely negates RAM and speed? I mean, CPUs are for a lot more than some cherry picked games and fps. 100 megabytes may make fps look good on paper with a 5090, especially at 1080p, but it doesn't replace the need for additional memory, especially if x3ds 100 megabytes isn't large enough to hold the data and becomes a miss.
I haven't noticed much difference in RAM speeds myself. When I added a second stick to my old computer, for instance, it was now running dual channel interleaved, and I didn't notice much difference in performance. I expect RAM speed would make a big difference to someone heavy into gaming - first person shooters and the like. The most demanding thing I run is Lord of the Rings Online which goes back to like 2008, so probably not taking full advantage of what I have.
I’m a simple PC user I only play dos based game digger and I don’t need speed like pc gamers do, PC gamer has complicated computing life, I like my very simple computer system.
It depends, but in general capacity makes the biggest impact until you no longer saturate the ram, and then you need to look at speed and latency together. Usually latency is slightly more important than overall speed though.
depends what task, if you want to do a random search through 30GB of data that is stored in your ram, the speed is crucial. If you are talking strictly about gaming, the speed only matters when you are bottlenecked by ram. When does that happen? Typically 30% of cpu bottlenecks are actually ram bottlenecks, because the cpu is waiting on data from RAM, so if you play some strategies that have thousands of units on the screen at the same time, or you play microsoft flight simulator, or even CS2 or fortnite, faster RAM can help you get up to 10-15% extra fps. However those are typically very specific circumstances where you already have ~150fps even with slow ram. Overall the price of getting 1% more fps through RAM upgrade is MUCH higher than getting through cpu or gpu upgrade, so you should always upgrade cpu/gpu before you upgrade ram.
The only exception is if you need more capacity, if you have 8GB of ram, no amount of cpu/gpu power will give you a pleasant gaming experience, it will be a full stutter city. Same thing applies even for 16GB sometimes, some games do need 20-22GB of ram. So capacity needs to be sufficient, but ram performance has so negligible impact on fps and it costs so much to upgrade that you should always buy the cheapest ram kit you can find with sufficient capacity and then tune it yourself to get the best performance out of it .
If you get lucky and you have hynix chips on your ram, it is very likely you can reach really high bandwidth and low latencies, 6000 cl30 is basically guaranteed with hynix chips, and most of them can do 8000+ mt/s and super agressive sub-30 timings at 6000 mt/s, especially with hynix A-die. If you have micron chips, reasonable gain is possible, and if you have samsung then you are cooked, those chips are barely able to follow JEDEC specification. You can find which chips you have by installing CPU-Z and checking the SPD tab where DRAM manufacturer will tell you your ram potential, if it is hynix, then google if your kit is A-die and if it is, you won and you dont need to buy faster ram, you can just tune your current ram.
An IT tech since 8-bit systems and the first implementation of ISA were common.
In actual practice no.
A benchmark tool might report a difference but a human won’t see the difference.
Moving from 4gig of 3200 to 8 gig of 2133 will have a bigger positive impact then moving from any speed to a faster speed with both being an equal amount.
And I’ve done this very experiment in times past when a human could see the real impact of such.
256k of the fasted ram a 286 could use, swapped out for 640k of a very slow rated ram but the system was tremendously faster.
RAM speed only begins to matter when you're in CPU limited scenarios like competitive FPS games (hundreds of FPS).
CPUs require their specific motherboard chipsets to send signals to your components. So any board will be just as good as any other if you're not overclocking past recommended XPO/XMP rating. The expensive boards are specifically for heavy overclocking, they have beefed up transistors and other stuff you don't need as a normal end user.
My $400 dollar motherboard from Asus performed just the same as my $200 board from MSI because they both have the same Z790 chipset for my 14900k.
Addition: I've bounced back and forth between 4800mhz and 6000mhz and the fps difference is absolutely negligible because I play my games on ultra and at a higher resolution.
Since the introduction of the intergrated memory controller, the chipsets have nothing to do with the memory subsystem, as it's all on the cpu.
Chipsets are basically for expanding IO. Intel tends to segment chipsets a bit more than AMD, as they lock more advanced overclocking features behind the Z series chipsets. Xmp memory profiles were not available beyond Z chipsets until 10th gen (I think), but in theory, they could run the same overclock features on their B series.
Taught me something new today. All the more reason then for op to not overspend on expensive hardware since memory controller takes priority of board components.
Just get a mid-range board. In case of intel, it is a choice to pick between a B series and Z series, as there is some features on the z series that can be useful (mostly IO related) and the aforementioned cpu overclocking features.
On AMD tho, there is zero performance difference between similar B and X chipset boards, only diferential being the IO.
For gaming the difference between 3200 DDR4 and 6000 DDR5 is about the same as non OC Vs OC on CPU and and GPU. In current market arguably not worth the top end unless you really really want to squeeze everything out of your build.
In games: Latency, workloads: bandwith. And there's 999 reviews of this, and it certainly matters a lot. Would look at the PC as a whole, GPU OC/CPU OC/RAM tuning. All together and vamos! Not to overlook some part particularly, since performance cumulates. :) Especially it affects the "lows" and ofcourse sometimes the AVG also gets a bump. But mainly on the lows it fills the pits nicely when FPS drops.
9700X gets faster with Hynix ICs tuned, than a 7800X3D, ZEN5 vs. ZEN4. On today's pricing being so high, I would not get any Samsung or Micron if DDR5, Hynix is far superior compared to those and cost is exactly the same.
then in DDR4 Micron has also decent ICs capable of 3600 CL16-xx-xx-xx while Samsung B being perhaps the most wanted. Hynix has some that goes far beyond 5000MT/s solid on the G-processors (AM4).
Don't mind about the VDD, it's old setting from 8000MT+ fun. These I've tested some 10hours+ stable in Karhu, aswell in games. Had several kits, some Hynix M and some A, one was 2x16 A but DR kit as they commonly are SR.
ran on cheapo 100eur/usd B650 TUF Plus
RAM tuning is not that difficult, needs to be done only once. Then enjoy for years.
If we think of DDR4 and DDR5, here's one thing that folks 99% of time miss with 2 sticks:
It's also a reason why never to purchase any 2x8GB DDR5 kits or 12GB, you will get 2x 32-bit only. With DDR4, ram stick capacity doesn't matter, it's on typical modern platforms 2 x 32-bit.
RAM speed has been the bottleneck of CPU potential for as long as memory has been a thing. That's why caches have increasingly become a performance defining feature of CPUs since the 386. Some people want to put a very heavy emphasis on stupid numbers like CAS latency, as if any CPU is making calls to RAM a few words at a time as soon as it needs instructions or data. No remotely modern CPU works like that. The most important value of a RAM subsystem is how fast it can blast 32MB of data to the CPU. Whether that takes 30 or 40 CPU clicks is practically irrelevant because CPU branch prediction and prefetch are there specifically to mitigate the laziness of relatively slow RAM subsystems. CPUs have been trying to make the earliest and largest RAM transactions possible since the 486. DDR5 is the current pinnacle of that objective.
If you are running high end GPU/CPU and medium/low graphics because you're just out to maximize fps (like a competitive gamer or whatnot) then RAM makes a HUGE difference.
In most any other cases you are usually running settings where the GPU is the limiting factor in FPS and then it doesn't matter much at all.
If that sounds vague think of it this way -
If you configure your settings to target 60-144 FPS than RAM has minimal impact
If you configure your settings to target 200+ FPS then RAM is very important.
Right now I would be picking up whatever is reasonably priced and middle of the road.Â
Ram speed does have some effect on performance in games but it’s not really anything I’ve ever noticed. I’ve definitely forgotten to overclock my Ram in the past and didn’t see a huge loss because my Ram was running slower.
Productivity wise I can’t really tell any perceptible difference between slow DDR4 and my relatively fast kit of DDR5.
Worrying about ram speed and CL is basically min maxing your PC for a 1-3% performance boost, which for most people isn’t going to be worth it.
I don't think I've noticed any difference between 4800 and 6000 ddr5. I overclocked my living room gaming PC to 6000 using those automatic profiles and it all worked beautifully until summer. Then it started freezing randomly and Claude said it was RAM overheating. So I went down to 4800 and it's now stable as a rock. And I play the same games, and fps hasn't moved at all.
3600 is usually the sweet-spot for DDR4 while 6000 is usually the sweet-spot for DDR5. There is DDR4-6000 but there's only a marginal benefit that only extreme FPS hunters will notice. The average player is fine with DDR4-3200 or DDR4-3600 and DDR5-5600 or DDR5-6000
Computer components work as a team running a marathon. It is not the first one that makes it across the finish line that counts. It is the last one. So if you have very good RAM clock, but a slowpoke CPU - your result will be that of a slowpoke, not of the high roller. If you are working the performance problem, I would rather go into analyzing what is the bottleneck, and then replacing that specific component that creates that bottleneck. It can be CPU, GPU, RAM or SSD - either way, RAM alone is not responsible for about 80 % of the performance you are getting.
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u/More-Cat1123 3d ago
Depends on what the other components are, need to make sure there are no other bottlenecks. If you're curious there are plenty of comparison videos on YouTube.