Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I’m planning to buy 16 GB Ram in a kit(2 8Gb Ram sticks) which are 1600 mhz

What do they mean by the mhz and is 1600 mhz good enough for gaming

Please explain.

Well the mhz stands for the speed of the Ram.

But if it’s good enough also depends on the rest of the system.

Please link the RAM in question, on the older systems, such as the core2 and older, when OCing the RAM speed was always linked to the bus speed, which had to be changed to up the CPU core clock, as such really high clocked RAM was needed for a stable system when hitting high OC’s on the CPU, with the Corei line of CPU’s this is not the case, as they are OCed using the multi and not the FSB (front side bus).

Do not buy into the marketing of “gaming” RAM, the speed of the RAM will NOT help your FPS, RAM today has very little affect on this. If you are OCing an older system then you need RAM matched to the FSB you will be running, if you are on a newer system or not OCing at all, then all you need is a set of RAM that matches the default bus speeds. So list your setup and we can let you know.

Also, 16GB is over kill for gaming, most games today are still 32bit exe files and will never be able to use that much RAM, most games today will not even use 1-2GB of RAM, so if you are buying the RAM for gaming, don’t bother, it’s a waste, however if you have programs that make use of it or are just getting a good deal on it, it wont hurt anything by any means.

16Gb is fine though 8Gb is more than enough if ur on a budget.
Make sure ur getting the correct type of ram. Modern PC’s use DDR3, 1600mhz being the standard.
Older platforms use DDR2 around 600mhz to 800mhz.

Newer ram comes in the following.
1333mhz
1600mhz
1866mhz
2133mhz
2400mhz
The higher the number the faster it is. Also timings like 9-9-9-24 should also be stated in the description/name. The LOWER those numbers the better idealy u want C9 RAM (1st number = 9) These figures are bassicaly how fast it responds.

Again like the mhz it wont matter much in gaming unless u get really horrible ram like 1333mhz Cl11 or somthing. and then compare it to really good ram like 2400mhz CL10.

Anyway, so long as its DDR3 ram u need and ur CPU is dual channel. 2x 8gb 1600MHZ CL9 ram is perfectly fine. Infact 2×4gb 1600mhz CL9 ram will do just as well.

SolarNova.1052:

Make sure ur getting the correct type of ram. Modern PC’s use DDR3, 1600mhz being the standard. .

There is no standard, 2nd gen corei uses 1066 default and 3rd gen corei use 1333 as default, none as of yet use 1600 as default, and installing in most mobos will default even the 1600 ram to 1066 or 1333, in many cases you will have to change this on your own as it means OCing the bus, 3rd gen corei might read the 1600 right off as the bus supports it without OCing, and most performance boards will read it right also.

SolarNova.1052:

Again like the mhz it wont matter much in gaming unless u get really horrible ram like 1333mhz Cl11 or somthing. and then compare it to really good ram like 2400mhz CL10.

Even then you will notice no FPS change, unless you are running off an iGPU which shares system RAM as video RAM, other wise the game files that need to be rendered will be swapped into the VRAM on the GPU long ahead of time and so total bus bandwidth means nothing, if you ran HUGE rez on a GPU with very little onboard VRAM and it had to swap in real time from RAM to VRAM you would have massive lag, today RAM choice means little. Get a good brand that’s 1.5v or under with a default speed at or better than the default bus speed and you are set.