DDR4 memory speed performance increase?

tictaktoe333 · 29 Jan 2018 at 08:31

I have seen a lot of people turn down good deals with 2400MHz DDR4 because they need *some higher speed* as they believe that 2400MHz gimps their system.. How much truth is there in this and has anyoen upgraded from 2400MHz and actually seen noticeable performance increases?

I would test but I still have DDR3 LGA1150

djbully · 29 Jan 2018 at 11:17

For Ryzen CPU's, that is certainly the case. 3200 MHz is much more desirable than 2400 Mhz!

For Intel I dont think there is so much of an issue. Ryzen only improves due to RAM Mhz being tied the infinity fabric, which is the data speed between ccx's.

tictaktoe333 · 29 Jan 2018 at 11:47

djbully said:
For Ryzen CPU's, that is certainly the case. 3200 MHz is much more desirable than 2400 Mhz!

For Intel I dont think there is so much of an issue. Ryzen only improves due to RAM Mhz being tied the infinity fabric, which is the data speed between ccx's.

Yeah to be fair most of the reporting on this has come around from AMD CPUs. That said, so ill-informed people with Intel builds are trying to steer clear of 2400MHz just in case. But I haven't seen anything to suggest that these fears are well founded.

chroniclard · 29 Jan 2018 at 11:50

Believe its the same with the latest intels, there is a benefit to faster ddr4 settings, its just not as pronounced as ryzen.

tictaktoe333 · 29 Jan 2018 at 11:56

chroniclard said:
Believe its the same with the latest intels, there is a benefit to faster ddr4 settings, its just not as pronounced as ryzen.

originally on release some Ryzens didn't even post with lower memory which was kinda shocking ngl. But its good that you mentioned about the Intel differences. I really am an Intel fan, I just trust them as the more "quality" choice - although I don't have any particular proof for that, as I only have one system with AMD in it and it seems to be fine haha

P4Clock · 29 Jan 2018 at 14:15

tictaktoe333 said:
I have seen a lot of people turn down good deals with 2400MHz DDR4 because they need *some higher speed* as they believe that 2400MHz gimps their system.. How much truth is there in this and has anyoen upgraded from 2400MHz and actually seen noticeable performance increases?

I would test but I still have DDR3 LGA1150

When skylake landed there was a lot of testing done and you can see much of that on YouTube.

Going from 2133 to 2666/3000 gave a 10 to 15 frp increase the tested was running benchmarks and simply change ram and retesting

Pocah · 30 Jan 2018 at 14:10

It is incorrect to just assume that frequency is the most or only important aspect of RAM. The timings are critical too. There is usually a sweet-spot, a balance between timings and frequency, that gives the highest level of performance for the money you are prepared to spend. So you don't just buy the highest frequency you can afford, rather you would sort out which RAM gives you that sweet-spot. In most cases there are people on youtube who have run the calculations, but it's not that hard to do. Sometimes youtubers don't talk in terms of timings which makes their effort pretty pointless.

P4Clock · 30 Jan 2018 at 21:01

timing as a little important but tbf its all about speed, timing are very important for benching but when it comes down to real world things unless your blowing your load in silly priced ram speed is more important

2666mhz @ cl15 and 2666mhz@ cl17 you will never notice the difference in the real world. how ever going from budget 2133mhz to budget 2666/3000mhz will gave you around 10to15FPS in GTAv, that was a real test done and it was shown to be a real result. google it.

tictaktoe333 · 31 Jan 2018 at 22:35

P4Clock said:
When skylake landed there was a lot of testing done and you can see much of that on YouTube.

Going from 2133 to 2666/3000 gave a 10 to 15 frp increase the tested was running benchmarks and simply change ram and retesting

Do you know if this is something that can be addressed over time through patches? or is it more on an architectural level?

My knowledge of ram timings stopped at DDR3 because my I7-4790k uses that and its more than enough for 1080p - anywhere from 1333-1866 I have seen no noticible improvement in performance.

Also I have now been reading things about coffee lake having slowdowns due to ram speed? if so, are all architectures moving forward just going to want faster ram? It seems crazy to think that what didn't matter in DDR3 world matters loads in DDR4!

Minstadave · 31 Jan 2018 at 22:44

tictaktoe333 said:
originally on release some Ryzens didn't even post with lower memory which was kinda shocking ngl. But its good that you mentioned about the Intel differences. I really am an Intel fan, I just trust them as the more "quality" choice - although I don't have any particular proof for that, as I only have one system with AMD in it and it seems to be fine haha

Did Spectre and Metdown pass you by? So much for Intel quality.

P4Clock · 1 Feb 2018 at 06:42

tictaktoe333 said:
Do you know if this is something that can be addressed over time through patches? or is it more on an architectural level?

My knowledge of ram timings stopped at DDR3 because my I7-4790k uses that and its more than enough for 1080p - anywhere from 1333-1866 I have seen no noticible improvement in performance.

Also I have now been reading things about coffee lake having slowdowns due to ram speed? if so, are all architectures moving forward just going to want faster ram? It seems crazy to think that what didn't matter in DDR3 world matters loads in DDR4!

It all about finding the ram for your needs. With ddr3 going from 1333 to 1600/1866 did gave a performance increase in games but going passed that gave nothing.

As things get faster ram will also need to be faster the talk of ddr5 is coming sooner than we think.

Rroff · 1 Feb 2018 at 06:48

P4Clock said:
timing as a little important but tbf its all about speed, timing are very important for benching but when it comes down to real world things unless your blowing your load in silly priced ram speed is more important

2666mhz @ cl15 and 2666mhz@ cl17 you will never notice the difference in the real world. how ever going from budget 2133mhz to budget 2666/3000mhz will gave you around 10to15FPS in GTAv, that was a real test done and it was shown to be a real result. google it.

Depends what tasks you are doing - some things will benefit from frequency a few things like tight timings - there is usually a balance that gives the best overall performance but might be slightly slower at some things - what is best depends on your usage. Gaming especially with multiple video cards tends to like bandwidth/frequency above anything else. Some complex CPU tasks can be penalised by loose timings but depends a bit on the configuration as in some cases higher frequency can effectively produce just as good timings.

tictaktoe333 · 1 Feb 2018 at 08:31

Minstadave said:
Did Spectre and Metdown pass you by? So much for Intel quality.

Mate don't talk about stuff you don't understand, Spectre and Meltdown affected the architecture of literally every manufacturer to different degrees. Just because it hit Intel the worst it doesn't mean that their quality is rubbish, it means they were unlucky with a truly unforeseen vulnerability. No manufacturer can patch something before they know it exists.

Privilege checking works on a cycle, that is something that is pretty key to the way modern computing works. You could argue that the manufacturers should have patched it before it was disclosed but if you have been studying cyber security enough you would know that that never happens - read up about the slow loris-style attacks that Microsoft literally cannot be arsed to patch. Encryption in that area of low-level cache would have just led to performance decreases when there was no reason to encrypt it as there was nobody who had ever exploited it.