The industry is moving away from using the term MHz to measure RAM speed and is adopting the term MT/s. The reason is that MHz is a measurement of frequency and MT/s is a measurement of data rate.
Megatransfer is a unit of data transmission speed in megabytes. One megatransfer equals one megabyte. Expressing it in seconds means greater precision when talking about the amount of data transferred per second.
Change in Windows Task Manager
The “Task Manager” shows us how much RAM we are using. In addition, it displays other parameters such as speed expressed in MHz. Precisely, this is the point that changes, since it will now be expressed in MT/s. It thus adapts to the change in nomenclature made by most manufacturers of this component.
This adjustment is currently only available to Windows Insiders Program users in beta format for build 22365.3570. It is unclear, at this time, when the change will be mass distributed so that it is accessible to all users.
With this move, Microsoft is adapting to the step taken by the industry to stop using frequency as an equivalent to speed. Manufacturers choose two paths. The first is to simplify the name to “DDR5-6000” without adding units, but this adoption is in the minority. Others choose to express it as “DDR5 6000 MT/s”, which is more common and more correct.
Thus, Microsoft and RAM manufacturers ban frequency as a synonym for speed. Certainly, the change is necessary, since we used an incorrect value, but established by the industry for approximately three decades.
Why were MHz used in RAM?
Using MHz starts with using SDRAM, which was a pretty decent way to measure RAM speed. There was a transfer synchronous with the clock speed. Basically, if the RAM was running at 333 MHz, the data transfer speed was the same as the clock.
The introduction of Dual Data Rate (DDR) memory breaks the 1:1 relationship between frequency and transfer speed. By using square waves, the amount of data that can be transferred at the same clock speed is doubled.
Currently, 3600 MHz frequency modules refer to the amount of data the RAM can transfer per second (MT/s) and not the speed (MHz). Indeed, when we see a frequency of 3600 MHz, we are actually told that the memory has a speed of 3600 MT/s or a frequency of 1800 MHz.
Well, now you know the difference between frequency (MHz) and transfer speed (MT/s) in RAM and why it has been misused for almost three decades.