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When building a PC, one of the discussions is whether to go for faster or higher capacity RAM. Gaming performance does not depend on it entirely but it does make a difference to the FPS you get in some games.
It also depends if it's an AMD build or an Intel build as some CPUs can take advantage of faster RAM whereas some builds only boost the performance slightly.
The component's frequency is measured in MHz and the capacity is measured in GB. There are different factors in play that affect the in-game performance, one of them being whether the component is installed in a dual-channel or not. This article will discuss whether the speed of your Random Access Memory makes a noticeable difference for gaming.
RAM speed and its effect on gaming
The difference that RAM makes in gaming performance is something that is affected by various factors, including the components installed on the PC such as the CPU and the GPU.
Firstly, frequency makes a huge difference in performance and is measured by how many times the memory can read and write in a second. For example, if the frequency is 1600 MHz, it can read and write 1.6 billion times per second and the higher the frequency is, the higher is the amount of data that can be read and stored. Game assets can also be loaded faster if the frequency is higher.
Second, CAS Latency (Column Access Strobe) is another factor to look out for. The time delay between a data request by the CPU and the delivery by RAM is known as CAS Latency, the lower it is, the better. DDR3 kit has the lowest latency, but DDR4 is better due to its better storage density and power efficiency paired with faster clock speeds, even though it has higher latency. DDR3 has a latency of up to 10 whereas DDR4 has a higher latency of up to 15.
The speed of the component does not affect all the applications equally and it goes the same for games as well. The resolution that the game is being played at will have some changes to FPS too. At 1080p, the RAM speed will make little to no difference, whereas at 4K, paired with a capable GPU, faster memory will see bigger improvements.
The amount of cache a CPU has affects the effectiveness of the memory frequency. The cache is a small amount of memory that is part of the CPU, which the CPU can access instantly, and the more cache available, the faster the game will load.
Lastly, the CPU you have makes all the difference in getting faster memory or more of it. A fast CPU needs to be paired with fast memory so that there is no bottleneck in performance.
Since CPU processes data way faster than memory, it requires constant transfer of memory or else it will sit idle while the on-board memory processes data and transfers it over to the CPU, which wastes time and uses more power.
Conclusion
What RAM you get mostly depends on what equipment you already have. Higher frequency is only needed when the CPU is fast as well, which will be able to make use of it.
The difference the speed of RAM makes to gaming is very small at the end of the day. Moreover, faster memory is expensive and the money can be better spent on buying a better GPU, CPU or even more memory, which will make a bigger and more noticeable difference in performance while gaming.
Getting anything between DDR4 2600MHz and 3200MHz is more than enough for gaming and anything more will be overkill with no significant difference.
