Is it possible for very low RAM clockspeed to bottleneck gaming performance?

[Triggster]

I'm using 16 gigs of dual-channel Corsair Vengeance RAM with a clockspeed of 686MHz and with a cas latency of 9-9-9-24. I noticed RAM with a clockspeed this low isn't actually sold anymore and I'm wondering if it could have any significant performance on high-end gaming, because of how unusually low it is?

I'm planning to upgrade to 32 gigs of Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz ram with a latency of 10-10-10-27. Will I see any significant performance increase from the drastically higher clockspeed despite the increased latency?

I also heard faster RAM could help mitigate possible cpu bottlenecks if you have a high-end gpu. Any truth to that?

Thanks.

 

[InvalidError]

You must be confusing MHz and MT/s here: 666MHz = 1333MT/s, 800MHz = 1600MT/s.

Upgrading from 1333MT/s to 1600MT/s will have negligible impact on performance (as in measurable in benchmarks but not enough to be obvious in everyday use) in most cases.

 

[Triggster]

I'm sorry, what is MT/s?

According to Speccy I'm currently using: 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 686MHz (9-9-9-24)
And I plan to upgrade to this ram: https://www.komplett.se/product/775110/datorutrustning/minne/corsair-ddr3-16gb-1600mhz-low-profile#

What I wanted to know if is the MHz difference will have any real effect on the performance. I'm upgrading for the sake of more RAM, but I wouldn't say no to an upgrade in speed.

 

[boju]

That's single data rate, everyone is the same. DDR double data rate, in case of cpuid or other diagnostic program you use will report memory in single data rate. Times that by 2 = DDR. Your current memory is operating at 1333MHz DDR. Check your bios to confirm for yourself, it will show the DDR frequency it's running at.

Going from 1333MHz to 1600MHz will not see a difference.

FYI, say if you did get 1600MHz memory, you'll see the same thing but only single data rate will report as 800MHz, just so you don't have conniptions

 

[Triggster]

Ahh okay, I think I get it this time. Thanks!

I do remember seeing it as 1333MHz in my bios a few days ago and it left me a bit confused which I was actually running at.
You're right, that doesn't seem like a worthwhile upgrade in performance. If I upgrade to 32GB, will the higher latency of the RAM I am upgrading to actually make it slower than what I am using now? May have to consider putting it off for a while.

 

[boju]

For gaming no, won't see any difference in performance with marginal timing differences any more you would going from 16GB to 32GB. 16GB is more than enough.

Maybe consider an SSD if that's an option? Be far more productive imo.

 

[InvalidError]

666 or 800MHz is the clock frequency being fed to the DRAM chips, 1333 or 1600 MT/s is the effective data rate (transitions per second) of the DDR lines.

9 cycles at 666MHz bus clock = 13.5ns latency
10 cycles at 800MHz bus clock = 12.5ns

1600-10 is 1ns better for latency than 1333-9.

 

[Triggster]

Already using an ssd. I'm pretty bad at not multi-tasking and running things simultaneously, so I tend to burn through large amounts of RAM. I'm usually sitting at roughly 60% even before I launch any game, heh. I agree, 32 GB is excessive for the vast majority of users, but I just figured I'd make it 100% sure I couldn't ever possibly run out in the midst of doing something.

InvalidError: Thank you for the nice explanation. I get it now.

Well, thanks to both of you for putting it in the clear for me. I'm going to go rethink whether I should wait with that upgrade now.

 

[InvalidError]

I have 32GB too. I used to have only 8GB in my Core 2 and it felt like dragging a boat anchor since my workload at the time required well over 8GB. When I got my i5 with 16GB (16GB of DDR2 cost nearly as much as the CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade at the time), I soon discovered that my workload actually required a little more RAM still to stop using the swapfile or continuously reloading stuff from HDD.

If I had used an SSD for the swap drive instead of getting 32GB of RAM back then, I think I would have burned the SSD out within weeks. (I had to make my swapfile span three HDDs to keep performance bearable before the i5/16GB.)

 

[Triggster]

What are you using that eats away all your RAM? I really don't do anything particularly RAM-hungry. Just general usage and gaming. But as I said, I'm pretty bad at closing down things I'm not using, and that eats away at a large chunk of my RAM before I even boot up a game. For more memory demanding games, I start to get close to running out (quite possible I have in some cases), though I don't think I am quite to that point yet. I just want an ease of use upgrade to save me from even having to consider it as a possible issue.

 

[InvalidError]

What am I using? IE/Chrome/FF, 1-2GB RAM each, Visual Studio, Xilinx ISE, GiMP, Libre Office, Eclipse, 1-2GB each depending on what I have open in each of them, another 3-4GB of miscellaneous other stuff. Roughly double that amount to have enough file system cache to hold the most frequently reloaded data and practically eliminate HDD accesses beyond the initial launch.

 

[Triggster]

So just a bunch of misc programs running simultaneously, same as me, then? By the time I get to playing something I'm already at the risk of it eating away remaining memory. Really want to upgrade to 32 GB, but then I'd most likely have to replace it again the next time I replace my motherboard (which I don't think is too far off). I really do think I could use the extra space, but it just feels so wasteful to replace all of my ram just because I might be running out in some niche situations. Most newer mobo's would be using DDR4 RAM, wouldn't they?

 

[InvalidError]

Depends on the CPU. Skylake is designed for DDR4 and so will AMD's Zen, so if you plan to upgrade your CPU and motherboard in the not-so-distant-future to either one of those, you may want to hold on for that 32GB upgrade until then. Broadwell (non-E) and older Intel CPUs as well as all of AMD's current desktop CPUs only support DDR3.

 

[Triggster]

Probably upgrade in a year or so. Maybe a bit longer. Running an i5 3450 and an asus P8Z77-V LX mobo. It's fine for gaming for the moment, but it's getting close to needing an upgrade to keep up. I doubt I'd upgrade to anything still using DDR3 ram.

I'd still get good use of the upgrade for atleast a year, but even cheap as ram is atm, that's still pushing it a bit. I've been running fine on 16 gigs of ram for years now so it doesn't really make much sense to upgrade, but it's still very tempting. I've only got 4 GB sticks too, so I'd have replace all of them.

One way or the other I'd have to invest into some new RAM once I switch out my mobo and cpu.