Does ram speed affect really much in gaming?

Solution


For ryzen you do indeed need the fastest you can afford as I mentioned earlier.

For Intel it does not really matter what speed of ram you choose.

Here is a link for Metro: Last Light and GTA5 comparing DDR4-2133 up to DDR4-3733 using Skylake.

As you can see both...
For AMD (Ryzen) yes.

For Intel no.

https://www.eteknix.com/memory-speed-large-impact-ryzen-performance/


If you have Intel then just buy the cheapest of the highest your motherboard supports.

For AMD, the witcher 3 picture in the previous link says it all.
 


For Intel it actually will, up until the stock speed of the memory controller. Above that, not so much.
So for a Kaby Lake don't go below 2400MHz and for Coffee Lake don't go below 2666MHz. For Ryzen get at least 3000MHz.
 
D

Deleted member 217926

Guest
That's pretty much incorrect and has been since Intel started putting the memory controller on the CPU. Using the 'official' supported speed has always been a performance hit. This is even more true since DDR4.

Unless you're doing a budget build with a locked chip you want the fastest RAM you can afford.

Skylake - DDR4 3200
Kaby Lake - DDR4 3600

Ryzen you have to be sure what you're buying. Generally 3200/14 guarantees Samsung B-die ICs and that's the sweet spot.
 


Buying the cheapest of the highest your motherboard supports is the same as saying up until the stock speed of the memory controller.

I was simply saying buying the absolute most expensive of a dimm simply because it has red, blue and green flashing lights won't help your fps.

 


For ryzen you do indeed need the fastest you can afford as I mentioned earlier.

For Intel it does not really matter what speed of ram you choose.

Here is a link for Metro: Last Light and GTA5 comparing DDR4-2133 up to DDR4-3733 using Skylake.

As you can see both are essentially a straight line.

http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-memory-scaling-intel-z170-finding-the-best-ddr4-memory-kit-speed_170340/5


This is in fact, pretty much correct lol.


But I guess to be fair, when the price of the computer exceeds $2500 an extra $100 on ram also isn't very much of a difference.
The super high end DDR4-4600 on the other hand will be a massive increase in price, but also a very small increase in fps for intel motherboard/cpu.

G.SKILL TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 4600 (PC4 36800) is $430
G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 3866 (PC4 30900) is $260
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300) is $163

"I don't work for G.Skill, they just happened to be at the top of the Newegg list when I queried prices"

If the question is will DDR4 3866 give me a massive fps increase over DDR4 2666 then the answer with an Intel motherboard/cpu is no.



 
Solution
D

Deleted member 217926

Guest
As I said in that post it depends on the game engine.

cCxjL70.png


mXq4LAD.png


tiOjfQN.png


Without going benchmark hunting Fallout 4 also benefits greatly from fast RAM.
 


If you read about the Fallout 4 benchmarks they agree that the Intel ones are not valid due to the ram running slower than the stated amount.

https://www.gamespot.com/forums/pc-mac-linux-society-1000004/fallout-4-ridiculusly-high-performance-gained-by-f-32754964/

"Yes, we know there's a significant difference between the now obsolete 1333MHz memory speed and 2400MHz, but from memory I don't recall it having anything like that kind of impact on gaming performance. Interestingly the same variation in memory speeds had little impact on the AMD FX-8350's performance, as the processor was just 13% faster with the quicker memory."

13% higher fps with a near doubling of ram frequency is still not great scaling.


I will give you Arma 3 as benefiting greatly from increased ram frequencies.

But the vast majority of games on Intel motherboards do not benefit as greatly from increased ram speed.

As I mentioned earlier, ram is cheap compared to the cost of the rest of the build so even though that bump from 2133 to 3733 probably won't increase your fps in most games,at a cost of only $100 there is little reason not to.
 
Linking a 50% increase in frequency followed by a 7 minimum fps gain just further justifies that increasing ram speed to increase fps is a losing battle.

Having said that the following link tells an even bleaker story from a slightly more unbiased source not trying to get you to upgrade your ram.

https://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/graphics/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/9/

A 3-6 variance between the slowest tested "1600" to the fastest tested "2400".


Looking at a different chart paints a similar picture.

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/battlefield-4-memory-bandwidth.383555/

Going from 8 gigabytes of DDR3-1600 to 8 gigabytes of DDR3-2933 only shows a 3.2 fps increase, an increase in frequency of 83%.

This falls in the range of the 3-6 variance from the last chart.