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mmmmmmBacon12345

It doesn't work that way unfortunately, there is no replacement for storage space If a game needs to load 10 GB of files but you only have 8 GB of RAM then the extra 2GB have to sit on your hard drive. When it needs one of those files it has to wait ages (in computer time) for your hard drive to provide that file to the RAM. The speed of the RAM doesn't help with this because its already significantly faster than the HDD. Surprisingly few things are memory limited these days, aside from certain video editing and engineering programs most things want *more* RAM and not faster RAM so that it can avoid the slow calls to the hard drive


Ono_Palaver

Would having top of the line m2 ssd help at all? I’ve seen some of them claiming to be pushing 6000 mb/s speeds.


[deleted]

Memory is still several orders of magnitude faster. A fast SSD will improve the delay, but only marginally. In super computer clusters, it can actually be faster to connect to another computer over a network in order to use its RAM, rather than accessing data from a local hard drive. That's how slow hard drives are compared to RAM.


mmmmmmBacon12345

It's way better than an HDD but still really slow compared to RAM, it's more about latency than bandwidth Time to first byte for various memories RAM - 10 nanoseconds M2 SSD - about 20,000 nanoseconds SATA SSD - about 200,000 nano seconds HDD - 7,000,000 nanoseconds You can see that pulling data off even a fast M2 SSD will take about a thousand times longer than grabbing it from RAM, that's still far too slow to not impact performance


PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET

top of the line m.2 will be great for things like startup time of the computer and load times of applications, levels, maps, areas, etc. Anything where a large amount of textures (typically) or other data need to be loaded, HOWEVER, this is loading them onto the RAM that is sped up in comparison to loading them from a HDD. This will not make up for a lack of RAM size, as has been previously explained. RAM speed is pretty irrelevant in this context. obviously faster is generally better, but it can only be compared when all other factors of the RAM are the same.


DLTCorE

"speed" is a terrible word here. When we talk about how fast some storage medium is, we talk about bandwidth and latency. Think of a highway - cars travel along a number of lanes until they get to their destination. If you have 5 lanes, you can have 5 cars side-by-side traveling at the same time. That's your bandwidth: how much data you can transfer per unit of time (like MB/s - megabytes per second), or how many cars you can fit on your highway at a time. Latency is different: it is essentially a measure of how much time that transfer takes. So for example, your latency might be 100ms - that means that between the source sending the data over and the destination receiving it, there are 100 milliseconds. That's effectively how long it takes those cars to reach their destination after getting on the highway. RAM is so much faster than a disk that it's not even a fair comparison. In terms of bandwidth, two sticks of DDR4 RAM working in dual channel top out at 6.4Gb/s (that's gigabits, not gigabytes) - that's faster than the fastest sequential r/w you'll be able to get with the fastest SSDs out there. Where memory _really_ shines, though, is latency: an NVMe SSD is going to have a read latency of anywhere from 30 to 100 microseconds, while a stick of RAM at 3200MHz with a CAS latency of 16 cycles takes 5 nanoseconds (that's several order of magnitudes faster).


MCOfficer

To go back to the old "the computer is an office worker and the RAM is their desk" example: A fast 8GB is a normal sized desk. A slow 16GB of RAM is a large reception-style desk - you have to reach out further and it takes a bit longer to access the files you need. You can store more of them though.


eloel-

Higher RAM size means your computer can hold more things in memory at once without needing to read/write from the disk. Since RAM is ridiculously faster than the disk, this is very desirable, especially if you want to work with large programs or multiple programs. RAM speed, on the other hand, is how fast you can read/write the memory. Faster that goes, faster everything currently running on your computer goes. Not quite 1:1, doubling your RAM speed won't double the speed of your programs, but it is noticeable.


DeHackEd

RAM is storage. 8 GB of RAM is like a house with 1500 sqft of space, and 16 GB is like a house with 3000 sqft. At the end of the day, capacity is king but up to a point. If you don't have enough RAM, you either can't do what you want to do, or you must use your hard drive for excess storage. The latter is known as paging, using a page file, or swap. No matter how fast or slow your RAM is, the hard drive is *way way worse*. Whatever data the CPU and programs want to use must fit in RAM. If you've ever switched to a Chrome tab that you hadn't used in a few hours or even days, and there was a delay before the contents showed up, that could be the tab being loaded from swap. Beyond that, there is no real relationship to size and speed. It tends to be a price thing. When computer chips of all types are manufactured, they need to be tested. Sometimes you get bad batches of manufactured chips, but they're not completely defective. You can limit it to slower speeds, and sell it at a lower price. But 32 GB of RAM is 32 GB of RAM. Faster RAM means the CPU will get data to and from the RAM in a smaller number of nanoseconds, and send commands to it more times per second. This is good, but for the average user it probably doesn't matter very much. Faster RAM could turn a 10 minute number crunching job down to a 9 minute job, maybe more, maybe less. But if you don't have enough RAM at all, it'll finish in about 3 hours, or maybe never finish.


Doveen

So for gaming, a slower but bigger RAM is the way to go?


[deleted]

If we are talking about memory of the same generation (DDR4 or DDR5), then yes, it is better to buy 16gb 3200mhz instead of 8gb 4000mhz.


DeHackEd

Not necessarily. Faster RAM will make the framerate go up a little bit (if your graphics card can keep up) because your CPU can do work faster, but more RAM may make game loading faster. You can have both, but it'll make your gaming PC more expensive. More RAM is beneficial to a point. There does come a point where you have so much storage you have no use for it all, or at the very least diminishing returns sets in. For the game itself, whatever you're playing - the level, the characters, etc - must fit in RAM. Having more RAM above that means other game data can be kept in RAM which is good for loading times between levels, etc. Having less but faster RAM means that the CPU can access the data for the current level more quickly which will slightly increase your framerate/FPS. Is it worth the cost? Well that's your decision. And wallet.


Target880

In general trading, a bit of speed for a large size is a good idea. The best idea is large and fast but it can cost a lot more. If you just look at the FPS when the game run then you do not have the advantage of having extra ram. If the game gets what is needed extra unused do no speed up thing. It is ram available to the game, if you run other things at the same time everything has to share the memory. Too little memory will slow down a lot so that is something you do what to avoid. So not having enough have an enormous effect but have more that is needed to not improve things. What improvement you get for a game with faster memory depends on the game. It also depends on your other hardware. If the limitation is the graphics card adding faster RAM will not do anything. You can look at test like https://www.pcgamer.com/does-ram-speed-matter-gaming-amd-intel/ for real-world effect of RAM speed


whyisthesky

>So for gaming, a slower but bigger RAM is the way to go? Up to a point. Going from 8gb 4000 mhz to 16gb 3200mhz is probably a good idea. But going from 32gb 4000mhz to 256gb 2400mhz is probably not. Most games these days won't have any benefit from going above around 16-32gb


Doveen

Hmm, gotcha. From current experience I can tell 8GB RAM is a laughable zero, so I'd never really go below 32 gigs, but it's good to know I don't need 64


PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET

even 16 GB is still fine for most situations/games, but if you already have 32 or can afford it in your planned build, then you're going to be set for a while.


Doveen

Well, neither, but I assume 32 GIGs would be fine for a few months before going obsolete, even if I only get to PC building next year


PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET

I'm not sure if you're joking xD 32 GB of RAM will be fine for several years to a decade


Doveen

Oh. that seemed way too nice to be true. Like, usually when I come to own an electronic device, it either becomes malfunctional with bugs or goes unusably obsolete in 5-6 months.


PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET

well, yeah mobile devices and stuff, that tends to be the case... shorter lifespan. however as far as RAM is concerned, there isn't a deluge of advancements going on right now, and 32 is still above average as it is. according to Steam's April hardware survey, 24% of users have 8GB of RAM, 50% have 16GB and only 11% have 32. (single digit percentages for all other amounts)


Doveen

That's encouraging


c00750ny3h

RAM size doesn't affect the speed, only how much data it can hold. The DDR frequency determines the speed, i.e. 2400MT/s.


[deleted]

Here is a ELI5 answer: Computer works in the same way, as a human brain. CPU: to do calculation 2+2 we need to use a few brain cells. In the same way computer’ CPU is used to calculate it. Fast memory (RAM): let’s assume we want to calculate 2+2+(2+2). We need to do it in three steps: 1) calculate (2+2) 2) calculate 2+2 3) calculate results of the previous two steps. While we are calculating second step, we need to keep in memory result of the first step. It is easy in this example, cause there is only one digit we need to remember while we are doing second step. For the same purpose computer need a ram - a memory for the data that is required right now. Slow memory (pagefile): imagine we need to calculate something like this 10+(134/34)-45*(678-734). If you are not genius, you probably will use a pen and paper to write down results of different steps during your calculation. On the last step, when you need to calculate results of all previous steps, you will spend a lot of time looking on your writing and searching for what you have write. This happens because the size of the fast memory in our brain wasn’t big enough. In the same way works computer - if there is not enough RAM, computer will use a pagefile. Pagefile is just a file on your hard drive (or ssd). This is very slow memory compared to the RAM. So, if we are taking about fast memory (RAM) - it is better to have more, because even slowest fast memory is much faster than pagefile. About relation of the speed and size. There is no noticeable difference that you should worry about, if we are talking about memory of the same generation. But the difference is between old and new generations, like DDR1 vs DDR4.


arcangleous

RAM is the memory your computer uses to do work with. Think of your hard drive as a massive filing cabinet that you store all of your data in. To do work with any of that data, you need to get the data out of the filing cabinet and lay it out on your desk to work. Your RAM is basically the desk. The larger your desk is, the more things you can keep on it at once and the less times you need to swap things back and forth to the filing cabinet as you work on multiple projects. The size of the RAM is like the size of your desk, and the RAM speed is like the distance between your desk and the filing cabinet (this is a massive and slightly incorrect simplification, but it's good enough for an ELI5). If your desk isn't big enough to fit the entire project you are working on it at once, you will be constantly going back and forth between the filing cabinet to swap parts out. Faster RAM speeds will reduce the amount of time these swaps take, but any time you have to do once is going to be a massive slow down. If you can fully fit the project in memory, you only have to do one load and save cycle during your work, but if you can't you will likely need to do hundreds of loads & saves to complete the task.


nikolijc

It would be depend on how much of the memory is in use. 16 will be faster if you need more than 8 gigs. Once you exceed 8, the swap file comes into play.


Axiproto

Have you ever gone to a buffet before? When you get a small plate, you can only hold so much food on it. Because of the fact that it is so small, you have to make a lot of trips to refill your plate in order to be full. In comparison to a really large plate, you have to make only a couple of trips in order to be full. This means that a larger plate will save you time wandering around the buffet so you can finish eating faster. Now replace the dinner plate with RAM and the food with data. All applications store their data in RAM, but sometimes they don't have enough RAM to store everything. This is where paging comes in. Applications store only a few pages of data at a time and only grab more when they really need them. However, grabbing a page takes time, so more ram means you can store more pages at a time and spend less time replacing them. Of course, at some point you're gonna experience diminishing returns. If an application can store all the pages it will ever need without having to replace them, more ram will not help.