Does ram speed matter?

[StillLeanp]

Hello, i am wondering if ram speed should matter, alot of youtubers say that 3200 MHz is the sweet spot, but what if your on a budget? would 3000 MHz have practically the same speed?

[Illusion of Progress]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย 🌈Cloud Boy🌈:

Faster ram helps the CPU to access data more quickly from the RAM with lower latency, so a faster RAM can give you more fps, but ONLY if your game is CPU bound.
If your game is GPU bound (which is most common), then you will get NO extra performance for using faster RAM. Because RAM can't affect (or increase) GPU's performance.

Pretty much true in general, but keep in mind that you won't always be entirely limited by one or the other, but rather various degrees of both.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Schrute_Farms_B&B:

Gotta agreee with some here and say : "NO".
Clearly and absolutely NOT, if you are a gamer and like already mentioned, use a dGPU like almost everyone.
No matter if you use DDR3 1333 or the newest DDR4 3200, there will be a max of 1-2% difference, at most.
There are a ton of benchmark clips on Youtube, which will show you all you need to know.

You money is better preserved with a good PSU than with some high end expensive RAM, where the difference can only be measured in benchmarks.

While I'm a firm believer that fast RAM is the last place to chase performance (as in, spend your money on a CPU with more cores, or at least a higher end GPU first, and only then on faster RAM), the difference is larger than "maximum of 1% to 2%", especially comparing older DDR3 to even standard DDR4 (let alone the faster stuff). But comparing "sweet spot" RAM of any given time to premium RAM, the difference is always small enough to where you're better putting it into a faster GPU first, especially if you're just setting XMP/DOCP and being done with it.

[r.linder]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย _I_:

ryzen loves quick ram
below 3200 will notice a small performance hit
above that not as much of a gain

Not true if you're being CPU limited on Zen2 (unlikely to happen on Zen3 as of yet), where your only option is to OC your RAM because there's no headroom on the CPU.

I get a pretty hefty boost in framerate by overclocking my RAM (XMP = 3200 CL16) to 3600 CL16 in Black Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, and it's bound to make a difference in other titles where a Zen2 CPU is a bottleneck, and a lot of typical CPU heavy titles like CS:GO.

[xSOSxHawkens]

It matters enough that OEM;s regularly get caught giving the speed/density/DC advantage to Intel builds over AMD builds...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7CO9v9rpOk

(there are a multitide of recent vids showing similar, from Dell and others, where the Intel and AMD parts of comparable value/market segment are shipped with (often) the Intel having faster RAM, D/C enabled, or lower density, resulting in the AMD option appearing slower until you equalize the memory and then... Its suddenly not... This was just the most recently uploaded example I have seen and I am too lazy to dig up the others for you)

[Du4lity (they/them)]

As long as you have enough RAM (8 GB or more would be enough), RAM speed won't affect your FPS that much, and if you're on a budget, it is better to get more RAM than faster RAM.

[r.linder]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IY_KlkQK1Q

RAM frequency matters more-so on Ryzen than Intel, but if you actually want to make the most out of your higher end CPUs, 3600 CL16 is an ideal choice in terms of price, performance, and ease of use as a lot of B550 and X570 motherboards will have no issues running 3600 C16 XMP profiles.

If you're on a tighter budget, then 3200 CL16 will do you fine, you're not really in the position to be paying more for the most performance you can wring out and that's fine.

[Gucci Rubber Ducky]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย StillLeanp:

Hello, i am wondering if ram speed should matter, alot of youtubers say that 3200 MHz is the sweet spot, but what if your on a budget? would 3000 MHz have practically the same speed?

If you are going with a ryzen cpu, assuming you are if you on a budget as intel cant really compete with the price of ryzen, then ram frequency matters. Recommended is 3600mhz

[Bad 💀 Motha]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Gucci Rubber Ducky:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย StillLeanp:

Hello, i am wondering if ram speed should matter, alot of youtubers say that 3200 MHz is the sweet spot, but what if your on a budget? would 3000 MHz have practically the same speed?

If you are going with a ryzen cpu, assuming you are if you on a budget as intel cant really compete with the price of ryzen, then ram frequency matters. Recommended is 3600mhz

Intel is very on-par with Ryzen and in many countries the Intel equivalent CPU comparing to a Ryzen of similar performance are often cheaper. In USA, Intel CPUs have always been alot cheaper at MicroCenter if you walk-in and buy in-store.

What RAM will help you, well this will ultimately be determined by your Motherboard and its overall support more then anything.

[Illusion of Progress]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Pacman:

As long as you have enough RAM (8 GB or more would be enough), RAM speed won't affect your FPS that much, and if you're on a budget, it is better to get more RAM than faster RAM.

This is actually incorrect, and I say this being someone who's in the "I prefer quantity above speed" camp myself.

Regarding PURELY the performance perspective, the facts are that as long as you have enough RAM, extra will do nothing (this is speaking of raw calculation performance, not extra cache room or its potential impact). Faster RAM, however, even though it's generally NOT worth it versus spending up elsewhere first, still IS factually faster, so it will do more for performance than quantity will.

And 8 GB is quickly becoming not enough for many people. 16 GB stopped being enough for me a while ago.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

8GB is no where even close to "enough"
Its enough for the OS, browser and a couple apps to run at once, that's it.
For games to run along side all of that at the same time you need 16GB minimum to be honest; otherwise look for things to crash and overall experience to chug.

RAM Speed helps, but Lower CAS Timings helps even MORE.
But again if you have a very cheap motherboard, many of those might only work with 2666 or 3000 RAM, so you really need to factor the Motherboard into play before anything else.

[Nico]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Bad 💀 Motha:

8GB is no where even close to "enough"
Its enough for the OS, browser and a couple apps to run at once, that's it.
For games to run along side all of that at the same time you need 16GB minimum to be honest; otherwise look for things to crash and overall experience to chug.

8gb is enough for almost the entire steam store. Including any open world game, arkham knight, gta online, red dead, RE8. As long as you close discord and chrome. The only exception is Rust.
That may change when they stop releasing games for the old consoles but we have a couple years for that.
Also 16gb ram might make for twice the budget if you don't know the rest of the components

[🦜Cloud Boy🦜]

8 GB ram is enough for now if you close all the other tasks on PC.
There are only few games that need more than 8 GB. NFS HEAT is one of them. It needs 9.5 GB.

[r.linder]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Nico:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Bad 💀 Motha:

8GB is no where even close to "enough"
Its enough for the OS, browser and a couple apps to run at once, that's it.
For games to run along side all of that at the same time you need 16GB minimum to be honest; otherwise look for things to crash and overall experience to chug.

8gb is enough for almost the entire steam store. Including any open world game, arkham knight, gta online, red dead, RE8. As long as you close discord and chrome. The only exception is Rust.
That may change when they stop releasing games for the old consoles but we have a couple years for that.
Also 16gb ram might make for twice the budget if you don't know the rest of the components

It's less than ideal though, and DDR4 is stupid cheap right now, but prices will gradually go up once DDR5 motherboards become available.

So right about now it would be stupid to not get at least 16 because soon enough, it'll be valuable and manufacturing will be scaled down because of DDR5 and it'll eventually become expensive and only really available on the used market like DDR3.

[n3rØ]

hm

[Nico]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Escorve:

It's less than ideal though, and DDR4 is stupid cheap right now, but prices will gradually go up once DDR5 motherboards become available.

So right about now it would be stupid to not get at least 16 because soon enough, it'll be valuable and manufacturing will be scaled down because of DDR5 and it'll eventually become expensive and only really available on the used market like DDR3.

Yes it's a no brainer, get 16gb DDR4 now, and keep it for at least 5 years until DDR5 stabilizes

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย 🌈Cloud Boy🌈:

8 GB ram is enough for now if you close all the other tasks on PC.
There are only few games that need more than 8 GB. NFS HEAT is one of them. It needs 9.5 GB.

In youtube I see 6.5gb usage in NFS HEAT

[🦜Cloud Boy🦜]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Nico:

In youtube I see 6.5gb usage in NFS HEAT

It was NFS 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLb_66hGuHA