Does faster RAM really help gaming performance?

[jak3mac]

I've currently got 8Gb 1600 Mhz Crucial Sport RAM and I've seen a great deal on 8Gb 2400 Mhz Kingston HyperX Beast so now it's only £45.95 ($77.26 US, or $84.97 Canada) which is a good deal but is it worth selling my old RAM? I would probably break even, more or less, but would there be any benefits in gaming or general performance? This is my current build: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3tlpJ

[Rorgash]

no

[jak3mac]

no

Well that's that then 

[Coombzy]

Only in some games Battlefield 4 for example takes advantage of faster RAM.

http://www.corsair.com/en/blog/2013/october/battlefield-4-loves-high-speed-memory

[Coombzy]

no

Not true Battlefield 4 utilizes faster RAM and future games will as well most likely.

[Mister Snow]

Not much. It is important for an APU but anything above 1600-1800 MHz doesn't make that much of a difference for regular CPU with dedicated GPU.

[DildorTheDecent]

I've currently got 8Gb 1600 Mhz Crucial Sport RAM and I've seen a great deal on 8Gb 2400 Mhz Kingston HyperX Beast so now it's only £45.95 ($77.26 US, or $84.97 Canada) which is a good deal but is it worth selling my old RAM? I would probably break even, more or less, but would there be any benefits in gaming or general performance? This is my current build: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3tlpJ

Not really much of a benefit but i'd go for it. I mean for under £50 is a steal for 2400MHz

[xToFxREAPER]

no

Not true, there are many benchmarks out that prove haswell which is what he is running can and will benefit from faster memory speeds as well as certain games like bf4 that others have already mentioned.

 

I've currently got 8Gb 1600 Mhz Crucial Sport RAM and I've seen a great deal on 8Gb 2400 Mhz Kingston HyperX Beast so now it's only £45.95 ($77.26 US, or $84.97 Canada) which is a good deal but is it worth selling my old RAM? I would probably break even, more or less, but would there be any benefits in gaming or general performance? This is my current build: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3tlpJ

Yes haswell WILL benefit from faster memory

 

One of the many sources: http://www.corsair.com/en/blog/2014/march/haswellrealworld

[totjup5]

Not really. I've run my ram at 1333mhz, and up to 2133mhz and saw only a 1-2 fps difference.

[Rorgash]

and GPU OC might give you 15fps, a faster ram will give you nothing worth mentioning unless running a apu... also thats only when the gpu doesnt have enough memory itself. THIRD, the kingston beast isnt that fast, its 2400 but its timings are slow

 

 

this has been tested in a linus video, you 1-5fps... MAYBE

[Coombzy]

and GPU OC might give you 15fps, a faster ram will give you nothing worth mentioning unless running a apu... also thats only when the gpu doesnt have enough memory itself. THIRD, the kingston beast isnt that fast, its 2400 but its timings are slow

 

 

this has been tested in a linus video, you 1-5fps... MAYBE

Just stop... look at the Corsair articles Battlefield 4 is only the start of higher speed RAM utilization. 

[RelentlessAF]

Just stop... look at the Corsair articles Battlefield 4 is only the start of higher speed RAM utilization. 

According to the source it's a very small incremental increase so not really worth an upgrade. If you were planning to build a system and were choosing the RAM you wanted to put in it than yeah go for higher speeds but it isn't worth the effort of selling it and buying higher speed RAM.

[Rorgash]

Just stop... look at the Corsair articles Battlefield 4 is only the start of higher speed RAM utilization. 

 

then find some faster, near ALL of teh 2400Mhz ram has MUCH slower timings making them just a TINY bit faster.. and on lower end GPUs maybe there is a bigger change. better to just get a gpu with more Vram..

[madscientist56]

In a system with an apu yes

In any other system no

[Cubit481]

Not really. I've run my ram at 1333mhz, and up to 2133mhz and saw only a 1-2 fps difference.

have u tested this on battlefield 4...??

[werto165]

It makes little difference if you've got a dedicated GPU in your system, however if you're running a APU faster memory will really help.

[Jrjy3]

It depends on the rest of your system most of the time. If you are running integrated graphics (that is, you don't have a dedicated graphics card), then yes. Faster RAM will definitely help your performance because the integrated graphics is using your normal RAM as VRAM. If you have a dedicated graphics card, then it has its own VRAM that is GDDR5, which is much faster than normal RAM. In some newer games, however, faster RAM is shown to have a slight performance increase even with a dedicated graphics card, but it's not more than 5-10 fps. 

 

Basically, if you have a dedicated graphics card, no. 

If you use integrated graphics, yes.

[Cryptonite]

no. the people giving BF 4 as an example really doubtedly tested it themselves. only APU's really benefit from faster ram.

[kinglyo]

Faster ram is meant to help when your doing heavy amounts of video editing but other than that its not really worth selling your ram and buying the faster stuff.

[deathjester]

I've currently got 8Gb 1600 Mhz Crucial Sport RAM and I've seen a great deal on 8Gb 2400 Mhz Kingston HyperX Beast so now it's only £45.95 ($77.26 US, or $84.97 Canada) which is a good deal but is it worth selling my old RAM? I would probably break even, more or less, but would there be any benefits in gaming or general performance? This is my current build: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3tlpJ

 

OC your ram to 9-10-9-28 T1 1866. Most decent 1600 9-9-9-24 1.5v will take it without even touching the voltage and you are fine upping the voltage a bit. Almost all decent kits will go to T1 as well. Run a memtest overnight to test the overclock. Tada. You upgraded your ram. A first round of prime blend catches memory errors pretty quickly as well if you want to make sure the mem overclock is probably good before memtesting overnight (save some time).

 

1866 got me 1 fps more on my 1600 kit than 1600 in one game only. Guild Wars 2. That is as cpu bound a game as I can imagine. 2133 cl10 got me MAYBE another .5fps if that and that was only one game. Your kit might go higher, might go lower. Who knows. In the end the gaming results are minimal on a dedicated GPU. That kingston hyper is the same stuff as your crucial just binned higher on average, and a cl9 2133 t1 might be faster in games then it's 2400 11.

 

Remove the AS paste from your order as well. Stuff that comes with the Evo 212 is fine. Put a bb sized dot in the middle of the CPU and let the heatsink spread it around while installing it. Tinting the heatsink can knock off a degree. put a dot on the heatsink and rub it in and off (you are just filling tiny gaps).  Tint/dot in middle of cpu should take you 15 seconds or you are trying too hard.  CPU OC> Ram OC.

[jak3mac]

OC your ram to 9-10-9-28 T1 1866. Most decent 1600 9-9-9-24 1.5v will take it without even touching the voltage and you are fine upping the voltage a bit. Almost all decent kits will go to T1 as well. Run a memtest overnight to test the overclock. Tada. You upgraded your ram. A first round of prime blend catches memory errors pretty quickly as well if you want to make sure the mem overclock is probably good before memtesting overnight (save some time).

 

1866 got me 1 fps more on my 1600 kit than 1600 in one game only. Guild Wars 2. That is as cpu bound a game as I can imagine. 2133 cl10 got me MAYBE another .5fps if that and that was only one game. Your kit might go higher, might go lower. Who knows. In the end the gaming results are minimal on a dedicated GPU. That kingston hyper is the same stuff as your crucial just binned higher on average, and a cl9 2133 t1 might be faster in games then it's 2400 11.

 

Remove the AS paste from your order as well. Stuff that comes with the Evo 212 is fine. Put a bb sized dot in the middle of the CPU and let the heatsink spread it around while installing it. Tinting the heatsink can knock off a degree. put a dot on the heatsink and rub it in and off (you are just filling tiny gaps).  Tint/dot in middle of cpu should take you 15 seconds or you are trying too hard.  CPU OC> Ram OC.

Thanks for the advice I already have the PC it's not an order, the CPU is @ 4 Ghz at the moment because it's an easy OC

[PewPew122]

Well it's a yes and no kinda answer. On the most part, no. Faster RAM will not make games faster.

 

Now the exception to this is....

1) If you use a APU, faster RAM may benefit the graphics core to load up textures faster.
2) If you use your RAM as a RAM Disk, faster RAM  will definitely help.
3) In some newer games (BF4 example) they are optimized to benefit from faster RAM. (At least that's what I'm told)

 

However, if given the option to buy "faster" RAM for the same price as the slower one, definitely buy it since in the future with newer and more RAM optimized games you will use it.

 

[totjup5]

have u tested this on battlefield 4...??

Yes, I have. No noticeable difference there either

[FellTheSky]

just overclock your current ram 

[Faa]

Once your gpu is at 99%, there's no chance that faster RAM or a cpu will improve your framerates unless you upgrade the gpu or add a 2nd card or OC the card.