Could someone maybe explain the difference between memory ranks and memory channels?

SimonJonker · January 16, 2020

Hi,

I am not that well versed in memory terms or even english, but I just upgraded my pc with a i7 9700k and I kept my old ram ( 1 stick of 16gb at 2133 mhz). I saw some benchmarks of other people who got way better fps in ac odyssey (like 40 fps extra) and I was wondering if that was maybe the memorys fault. I am pretty sad at the moment, because I just spend a lot of money on the upgrade and I have the feeling like I have to upgrade again just to take advantage of my new CPU. So I want to buy new memory but what should I get? What speed, dual channel or quad channel, and what are memory ranks? Oh, and in most games my CPU will go randomly for less than a second to 100% load and then back to normal, especially when I get to a new undiscovered aria, except for ac odyssey, that game is always 100%, because ubisoft. Is that normal or is there a setting that is causing this? I have not overclocked my cpu and ram (I did but I didn't feel comfortable with pushing my ram that hard, and I still am not comfortable with CPU overclocking yet.

Any help will be much appreciated.

.Apex. · January 16, 2020

25 minutes ago, SimonJonker said:

I saw some benchmarks of other people who got way better fps in ac odyssey (like 40 fps extra) and I was wondering if that was maybe the memorys fault. I am pretty sad at the moment, because I just spend a lot of money on the upgrade and I have the feeling like I have to upgrade again just to take advantage of my new CPU. So I want to buy new memory but what should I get? What speed, dual channel or quad channel, and what are memory ranks? Oh, and in most games my CPU will go randomly for less than a second to 100% load and then back to normal, especially when I get to a new undiscovered aria, except for ac odyssey, that game is always 100%, because ubisoft. Is that normal or is there a setting that is causing this? I have not overclocked my cpu and ram (I did but I didn't feel comfortable with pushing my ram that hard, and I still am not comfortable with CPU overclocking yet.

Yeah that stick of RAM is bottlenecking your CPU hard, memory ranks don't matter much so don't pay attention to them and it's always best to fill up your Memory Channels for optimal performance, in your case the 9700K supports up to Dual Channel but it doesn't mean you can't use 4 sticks of RAM, it means each 2 slots are connected to 1 Channel.

Go for higher speed RAM as well, 3000mhz costs almost the same as 2133mhz RAM so there's no reason not to.