{"video_id":"D_Yt4vSZKVk","title":"Does RAM speed REALLY matter?","channel":"Linus Tech Tips","show":"Linus Tech Tips","published_at":"2017-05-06T14:53:29Z","duration_s":544,"segments":[{"start_s":0.26,"end_s":1.54,"text":"RAM","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":1.54,"end_s":7.25,"text":"Whether you bat for the red team or the blue team","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":8.21,"end_s":9.93,"text":"You need it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":9.93,"end_s":15.25,"text":"but there are so many options from 2133 to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":16.29,"end_s":18.49,"text":"4266 megahertz","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":19.19,"end_s":25.15,"text":"But could it possibly be worth emptying your wallet for the fastest memory on the market?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":26.42,"end_s":28.42,"text":"Let's find out","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":28.42,"end_s":44.94,"text":"We're opening up a new merch store. You can check out some of our new gear today at the link in the video description","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":46.49,"end_s":48.55,"text":"First a primer on RAM","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":49.25,"end_s":56.47,"text":"DDR4 is the latest version of the form of DRAM that our computers almost universally use","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":57.23,"end_s":62.31,"text":"programs get loaded into it from our SSDs and hard drives because it's","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":62.63,"end_s":68.85,"text":"Blazing fast performance is needed to feed our CPUs data to munch on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":68.85,"end_s":71.99,"text":"Turn in those ones and zeros into games","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":72.67,"end_s":77.21,"text":"Boring PowerPoint presentations or this video that you're watching right now","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":77.91,"end_s":82.69,"text":"Cool, so the faster the RAM the better the performance, right?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":83.72,"end_s":88.36,"text":"Not quite there comes a point where even if you could","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":88.94,"end_s":96.52,"text":"Force feed your CPU more data. It couldn't possibly chew through it fast enough to make a difference","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":96.94,"end_s":98.94,"text":"so the sweet spot as","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":98.94,"end_s":104.42,"text":"Always probably lies somewhere in the middle. We just need to find it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":105.1,"end_s":111.16,"text":"Let's establish a baseline here the joint electron device engineering council or","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":111.84,"end_s":113.7,"text":"Jdec for short","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":113.7,"end_s":115.22,"text":"specifies","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":115.22,"end_s":122.36,"text":"2133 megahertz for DDR4 while on both Intel's Z270 and X99 platforms","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":122.64,"end_s":128.44,"text":"Running anything over DDR4 2400 megahertz is outside the official spec","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":128.94,"end_s":136.76,"text":"AMD for their part has specified a range of speeds with the most frequently used configuration also sitting at 2400 megahertz","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":136.76,"end_s":138.76,"text":"But wait a minute what?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":138.76,"end_s":141.8,"text":"Well, why the heck are companies like G skill?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":142.56,"end_s":144.56,"text":"advertising speeds that are up to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":145.18,"end_s":146.98,"text":"almost double that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":146.98,"end_s":148.92,"text":"Well, the answer is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":148.92,"end_s":150.92,"text":"sanctioned overclocking","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":150.96,"end_s":158.86,"text":"Intel's extreme memory profile or XMP for short has become something of an industry standard for running high-end","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":159.0,"end_s":161.12,"text":"memory to its rated spec on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":161.74,"end_s":163.74,"text":"supported motherboards","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":163.84,"end_s":172.3,"text":"Every RAM module even the highest-end XMP ones then have the Jdec standard speeds baked in then along with that a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":172.86,"end_s":177.98,"text":"faster XMP profile that's stored on a chip that identifies each","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":178.44,"end_s":182.96,"text":"Individual module in a standard that's called serial presence detect or SPD","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":183.42,"end_s":188.32,"text":"for compatibility reasons Jdec comes first and it's only when you specifically","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":189.0,"end_s":195.8,"text":"Enable XMP in your computer's BIOS that it will run at those speeds or at least in theory it will","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":196.28,"end_s":202.7,"text":"We've had tons of issues over the years most recently during the Ryzen 7 launch where we couldn't get past","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":203.46,"end_s":207.38,"text":"2666 megahertz no matter what ASUS AMD or G skill said","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":207.96,"end_s":214.0,"text":"our board with our memory has since been fixed which is great with a firmware update, but","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":214.48,"end_s":218.26,"text":"sanctioned overclocking is still overclocking and it can cause","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":218.26,"end_s":225.48,"text":"These kinds of issues from chip to chip or board to board or RAM stick to RAM stick depending on your luck","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":225.48,"end_s":228.54,"text":"It can also cause less severe","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":228.54,"end_s":233.36,"text":"But equally annoying issues to crop up at random at some point in the future","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":233.36,"end_s":240.68,"text":"But whatever Linus enough of this warning label crap. I'm prepared to spend a weekend bashing my head","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":241.26,"end_s":243.26,"text":"against the wall","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":243.34,"end_s":247.6,"text":"Troubleshooting my new gaming rig so tell me what do I stand to gain?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":248.58,"end_s":250.54,"text":"for my pain","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":250.54,"end_s":257.6,"text":"Great question. We tested a variety of configurations on AMD the maximum we could achieve was ddr4","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":258.12,"end_s":260.24,"text":"3200 and on Intel we hit","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":260.82,"end_s":264.32,"text":"3600 megahertz before we just stopped turning the dial because","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":265.08,"end_s":266.32,"text":"spoiler alert","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":266.32,"end_s":271.1,"text":"Well, no wait actually no you'll see using 2133 megahertz as a baseline","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":271.1,"end_s":277.54,"text":"We ran Deus Ex mankind divided and rise of the tomb raider in both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":277.64,"end_s":278.74,"text":"modes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":278.74,"end_s":283.04,"text":"Some games clearly won't care much about RAM speeds","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":283.2,"end_s":290.06,"text":"But others can end up being more memory sensitive than we'd initially expected in for honor","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":290.58,"end_s":298.22,"text":"average frame rates looked to be within margin of error regardless of RAM speed, but looking closely er the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":298.6,"end_s":307.48,"text":"97th percentile minimum frame rate does seem to have been affected as far as synthetics go we tested seven zip","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":307.64,"end_s":315.46,"text":"The RAM hungry why cruncher Cinebench r15 and ASUS real bench where we had much more","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":315.88,"end_s":321.7,"text":"consistent results if by consistent we mean eerily similar across the board","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":322.55,"end_s":329.05,"text":"Which leads us then into the price and performance summary in almost every case?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":329.51,"end_s":334.17,"text":"the largest improvement in performance over 2133 is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":335.47,"end_s":337.47,"text":"achieved by 2666","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":337.93,"end_s":344.65,"text":"Megahertz then there's another modest improvement when you jump to 3200 and from there","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":345.59,"end_s":346.97,"text":"marketing and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":346.97,"end_s":353.07,"text":"purely synthetic benchmarks aside things go downhill pretty quickly on both Intel and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":353.67,"end_s":359.35,"text":"AMD leading us to conclude that there's no point going higher even if you could","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":360.17,"end_s":365.17,"text":"So then by 3200 megahertz RAM since that's the sweet spot, right?","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":365.98,"end_s":367.9,"text":"well, but shhhhhh","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":367.96,"end_s":369.4,"text":"Sure","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":369.4,"end_s":373.96,"text":"But it actually depends to what kind of a budget you're working with for your system","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":373.96,"end_s":378.76,"text":"If you've already got the best of everything then sure yeah","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":378.8,"end_s":383.62,"text":"You might want to go higher on your RAM to eke out that slim improvement","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":383.68,"end_s":392.74,"text":"But if you're on any kind of fixed budget well for 64 bucks the difference between 2133 and 3600 RAM","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":392.86,"end_s":396.64,"text":"you could go from a core i5 7500 to a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":396.64,"end_s":404.14,"text":"7600 K netting you higher CPU clock speeds and overclocking support or from a Ryzen 5","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":404.64,"end_s":410.8,"text":"1500 X to a 1600 X giving you two whole additional processing cores and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":412.34,"end_s":415.3,"text":"That only accounts for the financial investment","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":415.3,"end_s":422.74,"text":"What we haven't even talked about is the time that this can end up consuming and going back again to look at the total","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":423.68,"end_s":426.44,"text":"possible improvement from a bare bones","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":426.44,"end_s":434.2,"text":"J deck 2133 kit to the fastest we tested the full conclusion becomes crystal clear","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":435.51,"end_s":443.89,"text":"4.7% for $64 more without any guarantee that it'll actually work means that we wouldn't recommend it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":444.09,"end_s":450.59,"text":"Unless you're out of stuff to spend money on that will give you more meaningful performance or usability","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":451.23,"end_s":456.19,"text":"Improvements and you have not only the time and know-how to tinker with it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":456.47,"end_s":462.23,"text":"But also the patience to drop everything and deal with it when something isn't working","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":462.23,"end_s":468.59,"text":"And this is especially true if you're using the latest and greatest platform with that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":469.17,"end_s":471.17,"text":"fastest and shiniest RAM","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":472.52,"end_s":478.26,"text":"Tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse the internet more","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":478.74,"end_s":485.76,"text":"Privately and securely you just turn it on. It's like really really easy you press like one button and boom","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":486.88,"end_s":491.3,"text":"your connection gets encrypted with AES 256 bit encryption and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":491.92,"end_s":500.06,"text":"You appear to the services and websites that you use as though you are coming from a completely different country","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":500.06,"end_s":505.34,"text":"Which in many cases allows you to use services that would otherwise be geo blocked","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":505.66,"end_s":510.72,"text":"Another cool thing is that your ISP can't track exactly what it is that you're doing online","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":511.54,"end_s":516.78,"text":"Tunnel bear has a top rated privacy policy and you can try it for free with 500 megabytes and no","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":516.88,"end_s":522.24,"text":"Credit card required and you can get 10% off by going to tunnel bear dot com slash LTG","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":522.94,"end_s":526.04,"text":"So thanks for watching guys if this video sucked","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":526.06,"end_s":527.16,"text":"You know what to do","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":527.16,"end_s":532.22,"text":"But if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":532.3,"end_s":537.14,"text":"The video description also down there is our merch store which I own hurt","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":537.66,"end_s":543.16,"text":"Which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum, which you should totally join","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0}],"full_text":"RAM Whether you bat for the red team or the blue team You need it but there are so many options from 2133 to 4266 megahertz But could it possibly be worth emptying your wallet for the fastest memory on the market? Let's find out We're opening up a new merch store. You can check out some of our new gear today at the link in the video description First a primer on RAM DDR4 is the latest version of the form of DRAM that our computers almost universally use programs get loaded into it from our SSDs and hard drives because it's Blazing fast performance is needed to feed our CPUs data to munch on Turn in those ones and zeros into games Boring PowerPoint presentations or this video that you're watching right now Cool, so the faster the RAM the better the performance, right? Not quite there comes a point where even if you could Force feed your CPU more data. It couldn't possibly chew through it fast enough to make a difference so the sweet spot as Always probably lies somewhere in the middle. We just need to find it Let's establish a baseline here the joint electron device engineering council or Jdec for short specifies 2133 megahertz for DDR4 while on both Intel's Z270 and X99 platforms Running anything over DDR4 2400 megahertz is outside the official spec AMD for their part has specified a range of speeds with the most frequently used configuration also sitting at 2400 megahertz But wait a minute what? Well, why the heck are companies like G skill? advertising speeds that are up to almost double that Well, the answer is sanctioned overclocking Intel's extreme memory profile or XMP for short has become something of an industry standard for running high-end memory to its rated spec on supported motherboards Every RAM module even the highest-end XMP ones then have the Jdec standard speeds baked in then along with that a faster XMP profile that's stored on a chip that identifies each Individual module in a standard that's called serial presence detect or SPD for compatibility reasons Jdec comes first and it's only when you specifically Enable XMP in your computer's BIOS that it will run at those speeds or at least in theory it will We've had tons of issues over the years most recently during the Ryzen 7 launch where we couldn't get past 2666 megahertz no matter what ASUS AMD or G skill said our board with our memory has since been fixed which is great with a firmware update, but sanctioned overclocking is still overclocking and it can cause These kinds of issues from chip to chip or board to board or RAM stick to RAM stick depending on your luck It can also cause less severe But equally annoying issues to crop up at random at some point in the future But whatever Linus enough of this warning label crap. I'm prepared to spend a weekend bashing my head against the wall Troubleshooting my new gaming rig so tell me what do I stand to gain? for my pain Great question. We tested a variety of configurations on AMD the maximum we could achieve was ddr4 3200 and on Intel we hit 3600 megahertz before we just stopped turning the dial because spoiler alert Well, no wait actually no you'll see using 2133 megahertz as a baseline We ran Deus Ex mankind divided and rise of the tomb raider in both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 modes Some games clearly won't care much about RAM speeds But others can end up being more memory sensitive than we'd initially expected in for honor average frame rates looked to be within margin of error regardless of RAM speed, but looking closely er the 97th percentile minimum frame rate does seem to have been affected as far as synthetics go we tested seven zip The RAM hungry why cruncher Cinebench r15 and ASUS real bench where we had much more consistent results if by consistent we mean eerily similar across the board Which leads us then into the price and performance summary in almost every case? the largest improvement in performance over 2133 is achieved by 2666 Megahertz then there's another modest improvement when you jump to 3200 and from there marketing and purely synthetic benchmarks aside things go downhill pretty quickly on both Intel and AMD leading us to conclude that there's no point going higher even if you could So then by 3200 megahertz RAM since that's the sweet spot, right? well, but shhhhhh Sure But it actually depends to what kind of a budget you're working with for your system If you've already got the best of everything then sure yeah You might want to go higher on your RAM to eke out that slim improvement But if you're on any kind of fixed budget well for 64 bucks the difference between 2133 and 3600 RAM you could go from a core i5 7500 to a 7600 K netting you higher CPU clock speeds and overclocking support or from a Ryzen 5 1500 X to a 1600 X giving you two whole additional processing cores and That only accounts for the financial investment What we haven't even talked about is the time that this can end up consuming and going back again to look at the total possible improvement from a bare bones J deck 2133 kit to the fastest we tested the full conclusion becomes crystal clear 4.7% for $64 more without any guarantee that it'll actually work means that we wouldn't recommend it Unless you're out of stuff to spend money on that will give you more meaningful performance or usability Improvements and you have not only the time and know-how to tinker with it But also the patience to drop everything and deal with it when something isn't working And this is especially true if you're using the latest and greatest platform with that fastest and shiniest RAM Tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse the internet more Privately and securely you just turn it on. It's like really really easy you press like one button and boom your connection gets encrypted with AES 256 bit encryption and You appear to the services and websites that you use as though you are coming from a completely different country Which in many cases allows you to use services that would otherwise be geo blocked Another cool thing is that your ISP can't track exactly what it is that you're doing online Tunnel bear has a top rated privacy policy and you can try it for free with 500 megabytes and no Credit card required and you can get 10% off by going to tunnel bear dot com slash LTG So thanks for watching guys if this video sucked You know what to do But if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in The video description also down there is our merch store which I own hurt Which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum, which you should totally join"}