Not everyone is a hardware enthusiast who knows the elements that make up their PC well, in the same way that not everyone has bought a PC in spare parts, carefully designed to have the best performance. Many people have a PC, it works and that’s it, but there are times when, perhaps, it is insufficient in some respect and you want, for example, to expand the RAM memory. Before doing so, you must first know what type of RAM does your PC useso if you have Windows, below we will explain several easy ways to find out.
Below we will show you several methods, all simple and free, to find out what type of RAM your PC is using. This way, if, for example, you are considering adding more memory to your PC, you will already know which one you have and which one you should buy. That said, let’s go.
How to find out what type of RAM your PC uses
As you probably know, the RAM currently used by PCs is DDR, but there are several different generations and currently most use either DDR4 or DDR5, although some fairly old computers still use DDR. DDR3. In any case, know what RAM memory type your PC is very simple:
- Right-click the Start button and select Terminal (Administrator)
- In the window that opens, type the following command: wmic memory chip gets SMBIOSMoryType
As you can see, the system returns a repeated value, because in this case we have two memory modules installed; If you had one, it would be one value, and if you had four modules, it would be four values, but always the same because a PC’s RAM must be the same type. And what do these values mean? Depending on your generation, it is as follows:
- A value of 20 means that the memory is first generation DDR.
- 21 refers to DDR2.
- 24 is for DDR3 RAM.
- If the memory is DDR4, the value will be 26.
- If the returned value is 34 as in the example, it means that the memory is DDR5, the most modern currently available.
Now if you want to know what speed If your computer’s RAM memory is working, you must enter (in the same window) the following command:
wmic memory chip gets speed
As you can see in the example screenshot, it also returns two values, one for each module, and tells us that in our case it is operating at 6000 MHz.
Finally, if you want to know what exact RAM you have installed on your PC, you can also find out it, in this case using the following command:
wmic memory chip get
In this case it is a little more confusing because it displays a lot of information, but we have indicated with red arrows the exact model of memory you have installed on the PC. In our case the memory SKU is CMH32GX5M2D6000C36, which corresponds to a Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5 6000 MHz.
Finally, there is another additional command that may interest you to know the RAM data of your PC, which is the following:
complete list of wmic memory chips
The information will be repeated as many times as the number of memory modules you have, as on previous occasions. Here we have data such as “Manufacturer” which is the manufacturer, “PartNumber” which is the model number that we saw previously, “Speed” which is the speed, or even “Capacity” which is the capacity but expressed in bytes. In this case, 17,179,869,184 bytes corresponds to 16 GB per module. Ah, another interesting fact is “FormFactor”. Here the 8 means the RAM is in DIMM format, but if it was laptop RAM in SO-DIMM format, a 12 would appear there.
