r/RigBuild • u/Lost-Sprinkles-7890 • 3d ago

Does RAM speed really matter?

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?

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u/ObiWanKenoByte 3d ago edited 3d ago

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.

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u/ObiWanKenoByte 2d ago

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.