1600Mhz VS 1866Mhz RAM?

[Dunlop0078]

Is there any noticeable performance increase going from 1600Mhz RAM to 1866Mhz RAM?

 

[DonQuixoteMC]

Is there any noticeable performance increase going from 1600Mhz RAM to 1866Mhz RAM?

Key word being noticeable: no.

They'll feel the same. Get whatever's cheapest, unless you REALLY need all the speed you can get for content creation. Even then it's a near negligible difference.

 

[swifty_morgan]

not enough to matter. but bigger is almost always better.

 

[DonQuixoteMC]

not enough to matter. but bigger is almost always better.

Yes, but just to clarify, sometimes low end 1866 MHz memory runs at slower timings to reach the 1866MHz speed. This would effectively be slower for daily use than 1600MHz RAM that had tighter (more respsonsive) timings.

Again, probably not enough to notice, but something to think about.

 

[Tradesman1]

When comparing to 1600 sticks say 1600/9 then a slow set of 1866/10 would be a hair better performance wise, while 1866/9 would even better and 1866/8 much better....As far as noticing it might provide a couple or three FPS in gaming, but the wider bandwidth of the 1866 would be better in multi-tasking, video work, imaging etc....and with both about the same price, might as well

 

[Leonell12]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWgzA2C61z4

...to sum it up, what the video basically says is that ram speeds, CAS etc do not mean anything in terms of desktop usage, unless ofcourse you plan to house a supercomputer under your roof (you might benefit from 0.5 fps increase going from 1333mhz to maybe 3000mhz)

 

[ssddx]

considering that something like gskill ripjaws x 1866/9 is only about $72 and for the same price or more you can get 1600/9 it really makes sense to get the 1866 if its the same price and the same cas.

as far as a difference... there is a fairly decent leap when going from 1333 to 1600 but less of a difference going onwards from there. how much difference will be determined by what tasks you do. the difference can be very slight or the differences can be in the 3-5% range.

most games are cpu or gpu limited not ram limited which is why you will not see as much improvement there. you will see the most improvement on programs which are heavily influenced by ram read/writes.

on something like photoshop or video editing or other task in the professional world a 5% difference can mean quite a bit on computers which are running all the time. in a perfect world that would be 24 minutes of extra productivity in an 8 hour day or 104 hours a year. on something like gaming at home or playing around it doesnt really matter as much.

however.... if they are the same price in the case of the gskill set i listed above... its worthwhile since its actually faster than all 1600/9 sets. the only thing which would beat it out would be 1600/7 sets which cost much more.

ram latency chart http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040182029