As you know, in addition to its generation (DDR4, DDR5 …), there are two parameters that are distinguished among the RAM specifications: its speed, measured in MHz or MT / S, and its latency, measured in nanoseconds. But the problem is that several times, you do not know if a RAM with faster speed and latencies is better, or better to opt for a slower memory but with better latencies, we will therefore use the old woman's account to explain it to you.
The final tip to choose your next RAM memory
When you start investigating what your next RAM should be, you will find for example terms such as “DDR5 6000 cl30”. DDR5 is obviously generation, and you should know in advance which generation of RAM uses your motherboard. The 6000 is speed, measured in MT / S (megatransfers per second), although it is almost always extrapolated at MHz speed. The last figure, CL30, is its latency, which is lower, the better.
The speed and latency are two figures which, to a certain extent, go hand in hand, and without going into technical details because we have promised a simple and fast method, this is where the old woman's account enters. You will see, imagine the following hypotheses:
- DDR5 A 6000 MHz CL30
- DDR5 A 6000 MHz CL32
- DDR5 A 7200 MHz CL36
What you need to do is divide your speed by your latency. With these examples:
- 6000/30 = 200
- 6000/32 = 187.5
- 7200/36 = 200
The value we get from this simple division is something like Speed for this latencyAnd logically, the greater the value, the better the speed / latency ratio.
In this way, we can see that (as it was obvious) some memories at 6000 MHz with CL30 are better than others at 6000 MHz with CL32, but it turns out that they have the same speed / latency ratio as certain memories at 7200 MHz with CL36. Do you see where we are going? A higher speed does not mean better if in exchange for this latency increases too much, especially in games.
Let's look at another example using the image of the Ram Cudimm that we put just above. These are DDR5 memories at an impressive speed of 8,400 mt / s, but whose latency is CL40. By making the account of the old woman, we obtain a speed / latency ratio of 210, so in this case, we already know that they are better than certain RAM DDR5 at 7200 MHz with CL36, which are those that we use in the example above.
Easy, right?
Eye, there is an exception to this rule
Although the old woman's account is very useful to have a fairly approximate idea of how it is a RAM, because you will know that it is a fairly raw and approximate calculation, because a large number of additional elements that are not taken into account, starting with the processor, really intervene.
What is true is that there is a clear exception to this rule: processors AMD Ryzen X3D. And it is that these processors, with the large amount of cache they have, really do not depend so much on RAM, and to be more precise, they do not depend so much on their speed. Therefore, if you have an X3D Ryzen GPU AMD, our recommendation is very simple: do not complicate and choose a kit of 6000 MHz with the latency as little as possible. As simple as that.
