Random-access memory (RAM) is one of the most significant components of a personal computer (PC), and it is essential that you have at least a specific amount of RAM no matter what you want to perform with your computer. However, the capacity of random-access memory (RAM) is not the only factor to consider; frequency and latency are also significant factors to take into account.
In light of the fact that we now have two generations of RAM accessible, namely DDR4 and DDR5, each of which has a speed that is considerably different from the other, the topic of whether or not the speed of RAM is relevant is very pertinent. Although the official highest clock speed for DDR4 was 3200 MHz, the starting point for DDR5 is 4800 MHz, which is a fifty percent increase; nonetheless, it is not difficult to locate RAM kits that reach speeds higher than 7000 MHz. It has been discovered that DDR5 is still quicker than DDR4, despite the fact that the latency has dramatically increased, going from CL14 on most 3200MHz DDR4 kits to CL40 on most 4800MHz DDR5 kits.
But does the speed of the RAM matter? The answer, in a nutshell, is that it depends. There’s no need to fear; we’ll explain.
What makes RAM fast?
Higher frequencies, reduced latencies, and an increased number of channels are the three primary factors that influence the speed of RAM. There is a distinction between each of these factors, and each of them has a different impact on the performance of RAM.
When you raise the frequency, also known as the clock speed, the performance of the system improves. This is the most obvious aspect. Memory bandwidth, which refers to the quantity of data that can be transported at any given time, is increased as the frequency of the data transmission rises. It’s not too complicated, and the process of overclocking your RAM is essentially the same as the process of overclocking your CPU or GPU. There are, however, variations in RAM frequency that may have a very little impact on performance. This is contingent upon the magnitude of the boost that you are experiencing and whether or not there are any other bottlenecks in your system that are more important.
The other side of the coin is latency. Although a lower latency does not improve the quantity of data that is sent per second, it does reduce the amount of time that is required for the central processing unit (CPU) and random access memory (RAM) to interact with one another. In comparison to raising frequency, manually reducing latency is a far more sophisticated and challenging process; hence, for the majority of users, it is almost likely not worth the bother. It is our recommendation that you just activate XMP, which will cause your RAM to be set to the maximum frequency and lowest latency that it is rated for.
It is important to keep in mind that when it comes to frequency and latency, it is common for the improvement of one to come at the price of the other. Raising the frequency while simultaneously raising the delay is more difficult, and vice versa. If you want to overclock, boosting frequency alone is often preferable to raising frequency and latency together. This is another reason why this is the case.
Memory channels are not something that can be altered via a settings menu; rather, they are directly related to the number of sticks of RAM and the central processing unit that you have. In general, mainstream motherboards and CPUs only provide two memory channels for customers to choose from. Two or four sticks of RAM will operate in dual-channel mode if you have them installed in your computer. If you just have one stick of RAM, your computer will operate in single-channel mode, which results in a significant reduction in the amount of memory bandwidth available.
How does faster RAM improve the performance of my PC?
It is all about the central processing unit (CPU), which requires access to a large amount of data that can be sent swiftly. It is true that central processing units (CPUs) have their very own separate high-speed memory that is referred to as cache, but cache is only accessible in limited numbers (even the Ryzen 7 7800X3D only has 104MB of shared cache). Inevitably, the central processing unit (CPU) will request some data from the random access memory (RAM), and when this occurs, the RAM becomes the bottleneck. Therefore, in principle, faster RAM equals higher performance.
To put this into effect, however, not all software is the same, and not all programs and games rely on random-access memory (RAM) in the same manner. This is analogous to the fact that not all apps and games benefit from having more CPU cores, faster individual cores, or quicker graphics. It is going to be dependent on what you do with your personal computer as to how you feel about quicker RAM.
Performance benchmarks
In other words, how big of an improvement in performance can you anticipate if you go from using single-channel memory to dual-channel memory, increase the frequency, or decrease the latency? We are just going to concentrate on the most popular apps and games since it is impossible to provide a thorough response to this question.
It is unfortunate that not a lot of individuals or media make the comparison between single-channel memory and dual-channel memory. This is mostly due to the fact that everyone utilizes two sticks of RAM without inquiry. On the other hand, this is of utmost significance when it comes to laptops. This is due to the fact that many laptops operate in single-channel memory by default, which is a poor configuration, or have half of the memory soldered to the board and the other half in a RAM slot. Ultrabook Review conducted several tests on the Asus Zephyrus G14 to see how awful single-channel RAM was. The Asus Zephyrus G14 is one that falls in the second group.
When switching from dual-channel memory to single-channel memory, the performance of the majority of programs, including synthetic benchmarks and games, was negatively impacted. It is especially intriguing to look at the gaming benchmarks since you would think that the G14’s older 2060 Max-Q graphics card would be the biggest restricting element. However, Shadow of the Tomb Raider has a performance loss of over twenty percent. If you were to do this test with a desktop computer or a laptop that was far quicker and could run games at a higher frame rate, you would see a significant difference between the single-channel memory results and the dual-channel memory benchmarks.
It has been said that benchmarks that compare single-channel RAM to dual-channel RAM are uncommon; this is the reason why the Ultrabook Review test used hardware that was somewhat outdated. Hardware Times, another newspaper that conducted tests on this, arrived at a result that was remarkably similar to this one when they tested it using DDR4 RAM in conjunction with a Ryzen 9 3900X CPU. To reiterate, the hardware is rather outdated, yet these gaps ought to become much more apparent.
Hardware Times discovered that single-channel RAM is a significant degradation when compared to dual-channel RAM, which has a frequency of 2400 MHz, in a test for Assassin’s Creed Origins. This results in a significant decrease in performance, which should not come as a surprise. Not only did the average frame rates see a significant impact, which ranged from 47 frames per second (fps) in single-channel to 81 fps in dual-channel, but at the same time, the low frame rates were much lower, coming in at 20 fps and 55 fps, respectively. With an average frame rate of 81 frames per second and 68 frames per second, respectively, using dual-channel memory with a frequency of 2400 MHz proved to be even quicker than using single-channel memory with a frequency of 3600 MHz. This was by a significant margin.
Techspot conducted a series of tests on Intel’s 12th-generation Alder Lake central processing units, concentrating primarily on frequency and latency on both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. These benchmarks were performed on a range of programs and games. The short and sweet version of this is that frequency and latency don’t often matter all that much, but there is, of course, a significant difference if there is a significant gap in frequency. Although the variations in performance between slower and faster RAM were not very significant, Adobe Photoshop 2022 did exhibit some noteworthy variances between the two. The memory with the highest speed that was tested, which was 6200 MHz DDR5, was not much quicker than even the slowest memory, which was 2400 MHz DDR4, in the majority of games. Hitman 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, on the other hand, demonstrated that the 6200MHz RAM was capable of producing 29% and 15% more frames, respectively.
Hardware Times discovered that the changes were evident when comparing RAM from the same generation; nevertheless, as long as you adhere to dual-channel RAM, it is always playable. That is the case. While moving to DDR4-3600 resulted in much higher lows (86 frames per second) and somewhat higher averages (98 frames per second), using DDR4-2400 RAM yielded a 99th percentile frame rate of 55 frames per second and an average of 81 frames per second.
However, despite the fact that faster RAM does not always guarantee greater performance, it is still a good idea to get a kit of RAM that is reasonably fast. At the time of this writing, there is essentially no price difference whatsoever between a 32GB kit of DDR5-6000 RAM and a 32GB kit of DDR5-4800 RAM. Therefore, it is absolutely worth it to spend a few dollars extra for the 6000 MHz RAM. In spite of the fact that higher frequencies are still very inexpensive, a DDR5-7200 kit is just around thirty dollars more expensive than a DDR5-6000 kit.
The dual-channel mode is without a doubt the most significant factor among all the factors that influence the performance of the memory. Not only does it not need much effort to activate (all you need is two or four sticks of RAM), but it also significantly boosts performance in both programs and games. On the other hand, frequency and latency will sometimes be significant, but in most cases, they will not matter very much, if at all. Despite this, the costs of some of the greatest RAM kits have decreased significantly over the last couple of years. This is due to the fact that it is a prerequisite for AMD’s AM5 architecture, and it will soon also be a necessity for Intel machines. For the sake of future-proofing, if for no other reason, you may as well acquire something faster, unless you are designing a personal computer with a focus on financial savings.
