I have to differ. There is no magic, "one size fits all" answer to the effect of RAM speed. It varies greatly by application. In gaming, faster RAM **can** be the single most cost effective upgrade possible....it could also be miniscule. It depends upon where the bottleneck is. One of the problems is reviewers tend to look at average fps .... where minimum fps shows a greater impact from faster RAM. Secondly, while GFX is the usual performance limiter, the situation changes in multi card systems in which the GFX barrier has been removed. But as with applications, which game is involved can easily change the answer to the question. The STALKER series was one for example that was not only affected by faster RAM but even by PCI-E (x8 vs x16) bandwidth.
To answer the question "Does faster RAM increase gaming fps, ? " one can "prove" either answer by choosing different games as THG has done here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/32-gb-ddr3-ram,3790-10.html
In Metro 2033 for our extra $20, going from 1600 to 2400, we go from 116.7 to 116.8 fps a whopping 0.09%
However, in F1, our $20 investment, gets us from 159 to 177 fps, an 11% increase.
Now to get a comparable 10+% increase from another component, you'd have to say spend $230 to go from a GTX970 to a GTX980 .... granted, the GFX card swap affects more games but even SLI will range fro 95% scaling to none or even negative scaling.
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