Why do we talk about RAM in Mhz still?

[Bitter]

For well over a decade effective speeds of RAM have been over 1Ghz, since DDR2 1066. Now we have DDR4 3600, DDR3 2133, and DDR5 6400 on the horizon. When CPU's surpassed the 1Ghz barrier we didn't call them 1100Mhz, we called them 1.1Ghz immediately. How come the same isn't true of RAM nomenclature? If it were simply because the actual speeds were 1/2 the effective speeds then sure, but with DDR3 and 4 routinely being sold at speeds past 2000Mhz effective the actual speeds are also above 1000Mhz. [Seinfeld] So what's the deal with this RAM speed naming thing anyways?[/Seinfeld]

[DezGalbie]

1 minute ago, Bitter said:

For well over a decade effective speeds of RAM have been over 1Ghz, since DDR2 1066. Now we have DDR4 3600, DDR3 2133, and DDR5 6400 on the horizon. When CPU's surpassed the 1Ghz barrier we didn't call them 1100Mhz, we called them 1.1Ghz immediately. How come the same isn't true of RAM nomenclature? If it were simply because the actual speeds were 1/2 the effective speeds then sure, but with DDR3 and 4 routinely being sold at speeds past 2000Mhz effective the actual speeds are also above 1000Mhz. [Seinfeld] So what's the deal with this RAM speed naming thing anyways?[/Seinfeld]

I've often wondered that too. I don't have an answer.

[r2724r16]

1 minute ago, Bitter said:

So what's the deal with this RAM speed naming thing anyways?[/Seinfeld]

It's harder to say 2.933GHz than it is to say 2933MHz

[porina]

I'd guess they'll use the current scale until the standard is written not to use that scale. The marketing speed (which is NOT MHz) is part of the standard name used in speed grades.

[Turtle Rig]

5 minutes ago, Bitter said:

For well over a decade effective speeds of RAM have been over 1Ghz, since DDR2 1066. Now we have DDR4 3600, DDR3 2133, and DDR5 6400 on the horizon. When CPU's surpassed the 1Ghz barrier we didn't call them 1100Mhz, we called them 1.1Ghz immediately. How come the same isn't true of RAM nomenclature? If it were simply because the actual speeds were 1/2 the effective speeds then sure, but with DDR3 and 4 routinely being sold at speeds past 2000Mhz effective the actual speeds are also above 1000Mhz. [Seinfeld] So what's the deal with this RAM speed naming thing anyways?[/Seinfeld]

Man you have to take that up with the tech people and companies lol,  they like to say DDR4 3200 .... so we know its 3200mhz.  I say both CPU and RAM both in Mhz so people will understand better ya know...

[BetterThanLife]

Because it Mega Hurts if we use gigahertz?

[pyrojoe34]

I think the most likely and obvious reason is convention... because that's how everyone has been doing it for so long...

 

It could also be that 3200Mhz sounds bigger than 3.2Ghz to tech illiterate people and that using Ghz for both CPU and RAM may confuse those same people. Just think of how often people confuse RAM and drive space already. But to be honest, I think the biggest reason is probably just convention. It's the same thing with GPU clocks, they don't use Ghz even though they could at this point.

[Bitter]

14 minutes ago, Geography said:

It's harder to say 2.933GHz than it is to say 2933MHz

A 350ci or a 5.7L engine are often not exactly that size, we round. We round for CPU speeds too, as the speeds got higher the little numbers became truncated. A 2993Mhz CPU because 2.9Ghz and no one cared.

11 minutes ago, porina said:

I'd guess they'll use the current scale until the standard is written not to use that scale. The marketing speed (which is NOT MHz) is part of the standard name used in speed grades.

I do realize that the marketing speed is often times used as well, PC3-14200 for example, which could be shortened to PC3-14G since 14200MB/S is roughly 14GB/S.

 

4 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

I think the most likely and obvious reason is convention... because that's how everyone has been doing it for so long...

 

It could also be that 3200Mhz sounds bigger than 3.2Ghz to tech illiterate people and that using Ghz for both CPU and RAM may confuse those same people. Just think of how often people confuse RAM and drive space already. But to be honest, I think the biggest reason is probably just convention. It's the same thing with GPU clocks, they don't use Ghz even though they could at this point.

Well convention be damned, I'm going to Ghz all the things!

[Mira Yurizaki]

Likely convention, and likely because using a decimal point would look weird. I think DDR4-3200 looks better than DDR4-3.2 or  say DDR4-2.667. It almost looks like a version number too.

 

Plus almost every CPU made in the past 10 years has been based on a 100 MHz base clock and simply multiplied.

[TopHatProductions115]

@Mira Yurizaki Why am I tempted to start using GHz, just as a prank? To mess with people?! Am I a monster?

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

@TopHatProductions115 you only just realised you are a monster? come on you're a talking hat. 

[Skanky Sylveon]

@firelighter487 @TopHatProductions115

[RoseLuck462]

Sticking with MHz sounds bigger I guess lol

[Bitter]

4 minutes ago, RoseLuck462 said:

Sticking with MHz sounds bigger I guess lol

I'm going to start measuring everything in centimeters if that's the case lol

[Mister Woof]

the bigger the number the better the performance obviously

[JoostinOnline]

Because while some of the more common frequencies work with only a single decimal point when using gigahertz, lots of them don't. With CPU's the stock speed is always a multiple of 100, because that's the base clock. It's also why GPU's still use megahertz.

[Wormhole]

[Bitter]

8 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Because while some of the more common frequencies work with only a single decimal point when using gigahertz, lots of them don't. With CPU's the stock speed is always a multiple of 100, because that's the base clock. It's also why GPU's still use megahertz.

 

2 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Likely convention, and likely because using a decimal point would look weird. I think DDR4-3200 looks better than DDR4-3.2 or  say DDR4-2.667. It almost looks like a version number too.

 

Plus almost every CPU made in the past 10 years has been based on a 100 MHz base clock and simply multiplied.

So this didn't used to always be the case and certainly was not the case when RAM surpassed the 1000Mhz effective speed threshold. The Intel Core2 line had many CPU's tagged with 3.33ghz or 2.66Ghz or similar, and it was fine. DDR4 2.66Ghz or DDR4 2.6...I dunno. Just seems weird that we're stuck on Mhz for some parts and using Ghz on other parts, when all the parts are in the speed range of Ghz. It would be like saying you're traveling 3000 meters down the road but saying you're going 3 kilometers makes much more sense, yea?

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, Bitter said:

So this didn't used to always be the case and certainly was not the case when RAM surpassed the 1000Mhz effective speed threshold. The Intel Core2 line had many CPU's tagged with 3.33ghz or 2.66Ghz or similar, and it was fine. DDR4 2.66Ghz or DDR4 2.6...I dunno. Just seems weird that we're stuck on Mhz for some parts and using Ghz on other parts, when all the parts are in the speed range of Ghz. It would be like saying you're traveling 3000 meters down the road but saying you're going 3 kilometers makes much more sense, yea?

Well thinking about it more, it may be more harmful to shorthand RAM speeds because the system has a requirement for RAM speeds. A requirement that has a tolerance to it. It may be that we can shorthand it down to the megahertz scale because this is the most deviation the system can tolerate.

 

CPU speeds don't need a level of precision because the system doesn't care.

[Bitter]

 

4 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Well thinking about it more, it may be more harmful to shorthand RAM speeds because the system has a requirement for RAM speeds. A requirement that has a tolerance to it. It may be that we can shorthand it down to the megahertz scale because this is the most deviation the system can tolerate.

 

CPU speeds don't need a level of precision because the system doesn't care.

[TempestCatto]

In addition to what @Mira Yurizaki said, I think it also has a little bit to do with marketing. People see more/higher numbers and they think it's better, faster, stronger etc. That's what I think anyway. There's always something to do with marketing, even if it's in a small way.

[TetraSky]

Can't wait for the day we get 10000+ Mhz RAM.

In all seriousness, they just need to skip whatever RAM speed would be in between two multiple of 100s in order to switch to GHz without any issues. Like DDR4 3000, 3200, 3300, 3333, 3400, 3466, 3600... etc for 3.0, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6 GHz.... Much shorter on a box to print.

But it just doesn't have as much "impact" I guess as a seemingly bigger number for the mainstream users who may not know any better.

[Bitter]

I don't feel like main stream users are buying and upgrading ram tho? Mainstream users have ipads and laptops with soldered RAM and CPU.

[TempestCatto]

50 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I don't feel like main stream users are buying and upgrading ram tho? Mainstream users have ipads and laptops with soldered RAM and CPU.

A good number of people that come here asking for advice or help for their first build don't generally know what they're doing (hence why they come here). So those "mainstream" users don't have any sort of knowledge or insight when it comes to the numbers and marketing tactics. That and, "mainstream" can mean a lot of things. Like for example RGB is mainstream in the custom PC building industry. It's all in how you perceive it I guess.

[Bitter]

I guess the average person I bump into doesn't know a SSD from SSN.