Will faster RAM Speed make AMD A10-6800k operate faster as just a CPU?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
hybird9012

hybird9012

Honorable
Jan 29, 2013
441
0
10,960
Hi guys,
I have a question that I have yet to find an answer for... my brother has a computer with an A10-6800k and a dedicated AMD 7850 discreet graphics card. The reason why he doesn't have an FX processor is he wasn't sure if he'd be upgrading to a discreet card any time soon. Now that time has come and he has an AMD 7850 2GB.

I have noticed there is a night and day difference when the A10-6800k' IGPU is playing games with faster RAM speeds. That being said, does faster RAM have anything to do with just the CPU performance? In otherwords, he is currently running 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz using a DISCREET GPU (7850), will there be a performance advantage upgrading his memory to 2133Mhz for the CPU ONLY?

Thanks!
 
Solution
photonboy
NO.
No advantage to upgrade to faster DDR3 memory.

The reason the APU experience scales with fast RAM is because it uses some of your System RAM rather than dedicated GPU VRAM on a video card. System RAM is relatively slow so it's a bottleneck talking to the GPU in the APU.

CPU.
When you ignore the GPU component of the APU and use a dedicated video card you can expect similar results to the benchmarks you see online. That is, more than 1600MHz is generally not needed.

Take into account that the CPU in an APU is a lot weaker than an i5-4670K for example and 1600MHz is probably even overkill.

CAS latency is unlikely to matter with this setup since 1600MHz should be more than adequate for CPU to memory communication.
Sort by date Sort by votes
Deus Gladiorum

Deus Gladiorum

Distinguished
Jun 29, 2013
1,434
0
19,960


Indeed, simply put the answer is no with perhaps a caveat. Faster RAM typically means faster or smoother desktop speeds, but those are modest.

When it comes to performance in applications or games you'd only notice a significant increase in performance for your CPU if your RAM was pathetically slow and was bottlenecking your CPU. If it was something like 400 MHz RAM then chances are it wouldn't be supplying information fast enough for your CPU, so your CPU would be bogged down by it. The difference from 1600 to 2133 may seem like a lot, but in all honesty it probably wouldn't make a huge difference (though there may be some) because whatever performance issues related to your CPU that you're experiencing aren't related to fast RAM and are probably related to your CPU just unable to perform calculations fast enough. At 1600 MHz the RAM is probably communicating with it pretty well, especially for something at the relatively low end of the spectrum like the A10-6800k.

Anyway the other thing to note when it comes to RAM speeds is CAS latency. You might be able to upgrade to 2133 MHz and see some improvement, but it'd mean nothing if the CAS latency was high. CAS latency, in simple terms (because I'm not entirely sure how it works either) is how quickly RAM can access a store of its data. A CAS latency of 9 means a piece of RAM needs the equivalent time of 9 MHz to access a column of data. Obviously, the lower the CAS latency, the faster. So if you find 2133 MHz RAM with CAS latency of 14 or something like that, it's pretty garbage. Right now if your DDR3-1600 RAM has a CAS latency above 9, then that's also pretty slow.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
photonboy

photonboy

Titan
Jun 20, 2006
21,567
13
85,015
NO.
No advantage to upgrade to faster DDR3 memory.

The reason the APU experience scales with fast RAM is because it uses some of your System RAM rather than dedicated GPU VRAM on a video card. System RAM is relatively slow so it's a bottleneck talking to the GPU in the APU.

CPU.
When you ignore the GPU component of the APU and use a dedicated video card you can expect similar results to the benchmarks you see online. That is, more than 1600MHz is generally not needed.

Take into account that the CPU in an APU is a lot weaker than an i5-4670K for example and 1600MHz is probably even overkill.

CAS latency is unlikely to matter with this setup since 1600MHz should be more than adequate for CPU to memory communication.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom