RAM is one of the primary components of a computer and it is important that you have at least a certain amount of RAM depending on what you want to do with your computer. However, there is more to RAM than just capacity: Frequency and latency are also important factors.
The question of whether RAM speed matters is especially important now, as Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake processors launch in late 2021 and can use both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM. The official maximum clock speed for DDR4 was 3200MHz, while DDR5 starts at 4800MHz, a 50% increase. Although latency has increased significantly, from CL14 on most 3200MHz DDR4 kits to CL40 on most 4800MHz DDR5 kits, DDR5 should still be faster.
So does RAM speed matter? The short answer is: It depends.
What makes RAM fast?
Corsair
RAM speed is affected by three key things: higher frequency, lower latency, and more channels. Each of these aspects is different and means different things to RAM performance.
The frequency or duty cycle is the simplest thing: you increase it, and the performance increases. Increasing the frequency increases memory bandwidth, that is, the amount of data that can be transferred at any time. It’s pretty simple, and overclocking your RAM works in basically the same way as overclocking your CPU or GPU.
Latency is the other side of the coin, as lower latency does not increase the amount of data transferred per second, but it does decrease the amount of time it takes for the CPU and RAM to communicate. Manually reducing latency is much more complicated and difficult than increasing frequency, so it’s almost certainly not worth the trouble for most users. We recommend that you just enable XMP, which will set your RAM to the highest frequency and lowest latency that your RAM is rated for.
Another thing to note about frequency and latency: improving one often comes at the expense of the other. It is more difficult to increase frequency while increasing latency and vice versa. This is another reason why if you want to overclock, just increasing the frequency is generally better than increasing the frequency and latency together.
Memory channels are not something you can change in the settings menu, they depend on your CPU and the amount of RAM you have. Mainboards and processors usually only offer two memory channels. If you have two or four RAMs, they will work in dual-channel mode. If you only have one stick, your RAM will run in single-channel mode, leading to a critical reduction in memory bandwidth.
How does faster RAM improve my computer’s performance?
It’s all about the CPU needing access to lots of data that can be transferred quickly. CPUs actually have their own exclusive high-speed memory called cache, but the cache is only available in small amounts (even the Ryzen 7 5800X3D only has 96MB of shared cache). The CPU will inevitably ask the RAM for some data, and when that happens, the RAM becomes the bottleneck, so in theory, faster RAM means better performance.
But in practice, not all software is the same, and not all apps and games depend on RAM in the same way, just as not all apps and games have more CPU cores, faster single cores, or faster graphics. Your experience with faster RAM will depend on what you do with your computer.
Performance benchmarks
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
So, exactly how much performance can you gain by going from single-channel to dual-channel memory, increasing frequency, or decreasing latency? It’s hard to answer this comprehensively, so we’ll just focus on the main apps and games.
Unfortunately, not many people or publications compare single-channel memory to dual-channel, mainly because everyone unquestioningly uses only two RAMs. However, for laptops this is actually very important, as many laptops default to single-channel memory (which is terrible) or have half the memory soldered to the board and the other half in the RAM slot. The Asus Zephyrus G14 falls into the latter category, and Ultrabook Review tested it to see just how bad single-channel memory is.
Switching from dual-channel to single-channel memory affected the performance of most applications, from synthetic benchmarks to games. The gaming benchmarks are particularly interesting, as you’d expect the G14 2060 Max-Q to be the biggest limiting factor. However, the performance drops by almost 20% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. If this was a test using a much faster laptop or desktop that could run games at higher frames per second, you’d see a much bigger difference between the single-channel and dual-channel memory benchmarks.
In benchmarks that specifically focus on frequency and latency on DDR4 and DDR5 memory, Techspot tested various applications and games on Intel’s 12th generation Alder Lake CPUs. The TL;DR here is that frequency and latency usually don’t matter much. In Adobe Photoshop 2022, there were noticeable performance differences between slower and faster RAM, although the differences were modest. In most games, the fastest 6200MHz DDR5 memory was not noticeably faster than the slowest 2400MHz DDR4 either. Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman 3 however, showed that 6200MHz RAM achieves 29% and 15% more frames, respectively.
While faster RAM doesn’t always mean better performance, it’s still a good idea to get a decently fast set of RAM. At the time of writing, there is almost no price difference between a 16GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM kit and a 16GB DDR4 3600MHz RAM kit, so paying a few dollars more for 3600MHz is totally worth it.
As for DDR5 memory, well, it’s almost twice as expensive as DDR4, and at least on Alder Lake, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Maybe DDR5 will pay off for Ryzen 7000 and Raptor Lake, but Alder Lake users should be just fine with DDR4, unless you’re aiming for absolute peak performance regardless of budget.
Of all the things that affect memory performance, dual-channel mode is the most important. Not only is it easy to enable (you just need to have two or four sticks of RAM), but it also greatly increases performance in applications and games. Meanwhile, frequency and latency are sometimes important, but usually not as important, if at all.
Editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn