Why ram speed doesn't matter

[Hosam-Jensen]

Could someone explain to me why ram speed doesn't effect gaming performance ?
And does and i7 cpu needs faster ram to work better or not.
Thanks.

 

[Rahul_Ignited]

RAM speed doesn't matter because real-world applications like games does not need so much of bandwidth from system memory. There is a limit after which the law of diminishing returns hits hard. Its very important for day-to-day computing to have very low latency (access time) to minimize data transfer delay for a faster experience.

i7 or i5 is not the case here. The case is the number of cores and its speed. Faster and more cores requires more data to be held in RAM thus increasing the requirements.

 

[Kollosso]

Linus explains better than i can https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Yt4vSZKVk
Generally, you are better off upgrading other parts of your PC for gaming performance, especially since RAM Prices rose quite a bit lately.

 

[Eximo]

That isn't strictly true, just that money spent elsewhere will provide more performance gains. In an optimal system fast memory is a way to squeeze the last bit of performance out of a system.

Memory latency is also more important than memory bandwidth to games.

If you are spending the money on an i7, no real reason not to get decent memory. For DDR3 that would be 1866-2133 with the lowest latency possible, or 2666-3200 for DDR4.

 

[Sakkura]

It's an old piece of misinformation. RAM speed does matter. It's moderately important with an Intel CPU, but actually very important with a Ryzen CPU.

Here are some gaming numbers with Intel chips:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-core-i3-6100-review

 

[Hosam-Jensen]

I watched some review tests 2400 vs 3200/3000 with 7700k and the diff is 4fps max

 

[ddpruitt]

RAM speed might matter. Depending on the CPU and the game RAM speed can make a big difference or no difference at all. You have to check benchmarks and reviews using your games and hardware to see if it makes a big enough difference for you to care.

 

[Hosam-Jensen]

Well..then I will get 3000hz