RAM speed and gaming

[Techicolors]

sorry if this has been asked a multitude of times, but for some reason there's not a lot of recent benchmarks concerning RAM speed and how it affects gaming performance. 

 

so i have a few scenarios for this: 

1. will RAM speed matter if i'm playing at 1440p and higher resolutions?

2. will it matter if i'm playing at 60fps? 

3. will it matter if i'm playing at more than 60fps (100+ fps)? 

4. does it matter more in open-world games (e.g. witcher 3, gta v)? 

[Nena Trinity]

Higher resolution it will matter less but overall any game where the CPU is the limiting factor then yes the faster RAM help!

[Techicolors]

1 minute ago, Nena360 said:

Higher resolution it will matter less but overall any game where the CPU is the limiting factor then yes the faster RAM help!

so it'll do better in games like cities skylines or arma 3? 

[COUPER MILLAR]

Gamers nexus did a great look into how much ram speed effects gaming. http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/2677-bf1-ram-benchmark-frequency-8gb-enough/page-2

[Techicolors]

Just now, COUPER MILLAR said:

Gamers nexus did a great look into how much ram speed effects gaming. http://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/2677-bf1-ram-benchmark-frequency-8gb-enough/page-2

it's a useful metric, but that's only one game. 

[COUPER MILLAR]

Just now, Technicolors said:

it's a useful metric, but that's only one game. 

True, but is it a good starting point. 

[DarkBlade2117]

1 minute ago, Technicolors said:

it's a useful metric, but that's only one game. 

Digital Foundry has half a dozen videos on this

[Techicolors]

2 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

Digital Foundry has half a dozen videos on this

this one? 

 

it's also a good metric, but there's not enough games. plus they're only testing an i5 

[DarkBlade2117]

2 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

this one? 

 

it's also a good metric, but there's not enough games. plus they're only testing an i5 

There are more than that... there are half a dozen of them or more

[Techicolors]

2 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

There are more than that... there are half a dozen of them or more

can you point me to the right videos? 

[LabRat]

well it does matter, not only depending on the cpu, but depending on the ram "lottery. this might sound crazy but just experienced this. One of my machines has an 8300 and 2 8gig sticks of 1866. The sticks I'm using are HyperX balh, blah, blah.

I recently purchased 2 8gig sticks of Gskill Ares for another machine. Same speed. I decided to pull the HyperX and install these to run them through their paces, make sure they worked. The machine auto configured the ram and I ran tests and ran some games. The Gskill were noticeably faster that the HyperX, especially when running games I am familiar with. Reinstalling the old dimms it was noticeably slower.

So I guess the brand might also have something to do with it, don't know.

But would I run faster ram............ depends. The 1866 ( old ) was noticeably faster than the 1333 I had on hand to build the machine with. And 2133 was noticeably faster than the 1866............ but ....................

 

[Techicolors]

8 minutes ago, LabRat said:

well it does matter, not only depending on the cpu, but depending on the ram "lottery. this might sound crazy but just experienced this. One of my machines has an 8300 and 2 8gig sticks of 1866. The sticks I'm using are HyperX balh, blah, blah.

I recently purchased 2 8gig sticks of Gskill Ares for another machine. Same speed. I decided to pull the HyperX and install these to run them through their paces, make sure they worked. The machine auto configured the ram and I ran tests and ran some games. The Gskill were noticeably faster that the HyperX, especially when running games I am familiar with. Reinstalling the old dimms it was noticeably slower.

So I guess the brand might also have something to do with it, don't know.

But would I run faster ram............ depends. The 1866 ( old ) was noticeably faster than the 1333 I had on hand to build the machine with. And 2133 was noticeably faster than the 1866............ but ....................

 

thanks for that. 

 

but i am more curious about RAM faster than 1866, such as DDR4 3200mhz, 2666mhz, etc. and using each on i5s, i7s, and Ryzen (once everything's optimized). then testing them in a whole slew of games, maybe the games that are coming out soon such as ME Andromeda and Ghost recon wildlands. 

 

i suppose the CPU and GPU make a far more difference in gaming than the RAM, but moving up RAM speed doesn't cost that much but at the same time, can make or break a budget build if you choose slower RAM speed. 

[Nena Trinity]

57 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

so it'll do better in games like cities skylines or arma 3? 

In theory yes, but you wont always get notable gains while others you might get a huge improvement! o3o

[LabRat]

if you're going to test ram speeds............ buy the fastest you can afford. then try that ram at various slower speeds.