How To Choose RAM [Ultimate Guide]

[Music] Ram is one of the most important pieces of hardware for gamers second only to the CPU and of course the GPU but just because it ranks lower than these two in terms of the overall performance impact doesn't mean it's any easier to navigate the endless sea of technical terminology present on the RAM spec sheet and the thing is you don't need to know the minut intricacies of how the RAM works and how each of the various specifications operate in fact many of them don't really mean a thing if all you're interested in is gaming so with that in mind we've dedicated today's video to the topic of choosing the right Ram if you're building a new PC and have thought yourself stuck this video will hold all the answers you need so I thought any further ado let's begin as always we'll go through some of the basics real quick starting with the most rudimentary question what is RAM RAM is an acronym that stands from random access memory so just like SSDs and HDDs Ram is the type of memory but unlike these two devices RAM can only store data while it's powered on the flip side however Ram is significantly faster it's several times faster than even MDOT two SSDs the PC makes use of this speed by constantly overwriting and refreshing the data inside the RAM so that the CPU and the GPU can always have quick access to relevant data without having to store it anywhere permanently as such it is crucial for efficient multitasking so if you like having a lot of programs open at once but this invariably leads to choppy performance chances are you need more RAM now we should mention that laptops and desktop PCs use slightly different brand modules in particular laptop Ram which is known as so-dimm or small outline dual inline memory module is smaller and has fewer pins by extension this means that the dim RAM or dual inline memory the desktop PCs use is larger and has more pins 28 more pins to be exact for a grand total of 288 pins as opposed to the 260 found on sodium's of course you don't need to memorize any of this but we wanted to paint a broad picture before getting to our point and the point is this you cannot use a laptop Ram with desktop PCs just as you cannot fit desktop ram into laptops they should be easy enough to distinguish at first glance but just in case we'll repeat the technical terms you want dim memory for your desktop PCs whereas you should be looking for so dam memory if you're looking to upgrade your PC with more RAM another acronym that is unavoidable when dealing with Ram is DDR ddr2 double data rate there are more acronyms related to this but you don't need to concern yourself with those all you need to know as a gamer is the DDR has gone through four iterations over the past two decades DDR ddr2 ddr3 and ddr4 each one is better than the last and there's really no reason not to go with ddr4 as it's significantly faster than ddr3 however we have to know the ddr4 has only reached mass-market adoption somewhere around 2016 this is a crucial piece of information to keep in mind in case you haven't upgraded your PC since then because ddr3 motherboards are not compatible with ddr4 memory so in case you have a ddr3 motherboard our advice is to replace it as ddr3 is already on the verge of becoming completely obsolete it's also important to mention that ddr4 motherboards are not backwards compatible with ddr3 RAM so if you've got a ddr3 motherboard your solutions are either to buy more DDR which isn't a real long-term solution for any serious gaming or to buy a new ddr4 motherboard and ddr4 Ram to go with which will be much more expensive and probably require a new CPU as well now in case you don't know whether you have a ddr3 or ddr4 motherboard here's how you can check just search for system information and then other system summary you'll be able to see which motherboard you have in the system module field once you have this tidbit of information you just find that model on the manufacturers website and check to see which iteration of DDR you are dealing with and while we're on the topic of motherboards let's go through the number of RAM slots you can expect to find on each motherboard the number varies based on a form factor of the motherboard mini-itx motherboards only support two Ram slots while ATX motherboards support for micro ATX motherboards usually have four slots as well but models with just two slots do exist there are also e ATX motherboards with up to eight slots but this is getting outside of gaming territory and into the realm of workstations do also note that physical restrictions aren't everything each motherboard has a hard cap on the amount of ramekin support however if you're a gamer you don't really need to concern yourself with this you'll be hard-pressed to find a motherboard it doesn't support at least 32 gigabytes of RAM and as you'll see soon even this is an overkill for gaming pcs just like motherboards CPUs also have a ram ceiling although once again this really shouldn't ever be an issue with gaming PC's since modern 64-bit CPU is generally support up to 64 or 128 gigabytes of RAM so as long as you have a relatively new 64 bit CPU you don't really need to think about this and if you have an older CPU once again you can find all the relevant information on the specification page on the manufacturers website next up we have to discuss the clock speed you've heard this all before if you watched any of our previous RAM CPU or GPU videos but we will say it again clock speed is a specification that determines how fast Ram can process data and its measured in megahertz now generally speaking higher clock speeds result in better gameplay experiences that's certainly the case with GPUs and CPUs but while the same holds true for RAM clock speeds it's important to know that the performance boost should be getting by installing faster Ram is miniscule we're talking single-digit fps increases but you can bet that the price difference between faster and slower Ram modules won't be in the single digits so if you want to get the best value for your money pay no heed to ramp walk speeds so long as you've got ddr4 Ram the rest should work out just fine for the purposes of gaming the difference between 3200 megahertz and 2400 megahertz is really not that grand what really counts is capacity and as for capacity our advice is to go with 16 gigabytes of RAM if possible eight gigabytes is still enough for most games but this will leave little to no RAM for other programs to use so you want to get into the habit of turning off all background processes before running a demanding game with only 8 gigabytes of RAM to go around the performance might be a bit choppy in some games but it will by no means be unplayable on the other hand 32 gigabytes is a bit too much for gaming at the moment if you have your sights set on more than just gaming then this is fine but if gaming is all you're interested in then you're better off sticking to 16 gigabytes you can always upgrade this to 32 gigabytes if you start running low on RAM but chances are the ddr4 will become obsolete before games become that demanding more importantly no matter how much RAM you cram into your PC it won't improve gameplay performance in the way that a better GPU or CPU would so at the very least you should never skimp on either of these opponents for the sake of more RAM besides upgrading your RAM is easy but upgrading the CPU or GPU is much much trickier so keep this in mind when deciding on the final bill for your PC using multi-channel ram has become a time-honored tradition among seasoned PC builders but what are its actual benefits after all eight gigabytes of RAM is 8 gigabytes of RAM regardless of whether you use a single module or more the same goes for any other specs like clock speed for example so on paper you wouldn't really be able to see that much difference but there is one key advantage to using multi-channel memory over a single channel memory and that is added bandwidth after all there's only so much data that can be transferred between the CPU and a single Ram module so dual and quad channel configurations effectively served to expand the bandwidth the more channels you have the greater the bandwidth and as you may have guessed more bandwidth generally means better performance however this isn't all that important for gaming rather its servers and workstations running memory hungry software that transfers vast amounts of data to get a tangible performance boost from all the added bandwidth this doesn't mean that games don't enjoy a slight performance boost from having access to multi-channel Ram but slight is a very much a key word here however we still urge PC builders to go with multi channel setups not because of the added bandwidth but because of two other advantages pricing and replacement getting multiple low capacity modules is generally cheaper than getting a single high capacity one now this may not always be the case as the lack of supply in some other market conditions can tip the scales in favor of single modules but generally speaking this is how the math works out so if you can get some added benefits at a lower cost there really is no reason not to do so especially when we take into consideration replacement as another benefit of multi-channel Ram namely if one of your two eight gigabyte modules were to die on you you would still have a functioning PC it would only operate on half the RAM but it would still operate on the other hand if your one and only 60 Gigabyte module malfunctions well tough luck you are now effectively without a PC until you go out and buy a new Ram module so to summarize multi-channel memory configurations carry with them the benefits of higher bandwidth as well as a built-in failsafe option and they typically cost less than single channel configurations with the same capacity as far as we are concerned the answer to this question is obvious go multi-channel although we should mention that while they're technically interchangeable we don't advise combining different RAM modules especially ones from different manufacturers in theory this works just fine but in actuality it can lead to some unexpected compatibility issues crashes and just an overall buggy performance and lastly we have to mention latency this will be noted under either caste or CL with the actual amount given in clock cycles rather than nanoseconds latency is the amount of time that needs to pass before the read command being issued is available for the processor to access as data now in case this sounds a little confusing don't sweat it even if you don't quite get it it doesn't really matter because Ram latency doesn't mean much to the average gamer so the benefits of lower latency Ram for gaming are pretty much non-existent so this is aspect that can comfortably go to the bottom of the list of priorities when deciding on a Ram module for gaming and that's pretty much all you need to know about RAM now we've covered a lot of ground in this video so let's do a little recap shall we the first thing you need to check when buying Ram is whether you need a laptop Ram or a desktop Ram the two are not interchangeable so you won't be able to proceed any further without getting this part right always go with ddr4 Ram as it's faster and technically superior to ddr3 the only exception is if you already have a ddr3 motherboard and don't want to upgrade it in this case you will have to get ddr3 RAM as far as the other Ram specs are concerned capacity takes precedence over speed and latency and finally go for multi-channel configurations as it's not only cheaper but also performs slightly better and leaves you with a nice failsafe in case one of the RAM modules dies we've made separate videos for most the points discussed in this video so if you want to go a bit more in depth we highly suggest giving them a shot the links are in the description and that about does it for this video we hope you found it helpful if you have you can help us out by liking it and subscribing to our Channel and if you've got friends who you think could benefit from watching this video help them out by sharing it either directly or on social media also if you want to see more videos like this one make sure to click on a bell icon so the YouTube doesn't accidentally sneak new uploads past you we upload new videos on a weekly basis so the next one is just around the corner in the meantime mayor games be fun and your loss is view and as always we'll see you next time on gaming scam

Channel: GamingScan

Views: 261,288

Keywords: gaming, ram guide, how to choose ram, how to choose ram for pc, does ram speed matter, ram buying guide, how to select ram, how to pick ram, how to pick ram for pc, ram channel, how to choose ram for your gaming pc, how to choose ram for gaming pc, gaming pc ram, how to know if ram is compatible, ram compatibility, ram speed, memory, ram, 8gb, 16gb, 32gb, 64gb, how much ram do i need, how many gb ram do i need, how to choose and buy ram, memory timings, ram timing

Id: mkpCvaBBo-c

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019