Actual effect of RAM speed

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

I'll be soon upgrading to P3D v4 and I'll have to get new RAM. Right now I have Corsair Vengeance Pro Series Red DDR3-1600, CL9 -8GB Kit. I'll be going for 16GB now. RAM is not that cheap these days and the difference in price between "normal" and "high performance" RAM is significant. I'm wondering what are the practical and observable differences in P3D v4 if one is using "slow" in comparison to "fast" RAM?

[19dcavscout 39]

This is a good video that will answer your question.

 

[Gary A 8]

Hi,

I use the sledgehammer where a tack hammer would do approach to PC hardware. To put it another way; buy the best that you can afford. yet another analogy, I do not work to minimum specs. For example, I am not buying 1600mhz RAM if there is even the slightest chance that 2400 is going to be better (providing I can afford 2400).  Then whatever: tests, opinions, bias etc. matter not.

Difference between 1600 and 2400Mhz is 1-3 fps depending, results vary.  Some folks report micro stutters eliminated or alleviated with the faster RAM.

The difference in price between 1600 and 2400 memory is around 20%.

What matters in RAM is the specifications, the speed, capacity and latency.  I do not care about silly colors, lights or heat spreaders or fancy marketing names.  Most manufacturers use the same chipsets: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, etc.  My personal biased opinionated preference is for any manufacturer using Samsung. For me for the extra $30 I would buy 2400mhz in the DDR 3 variety.

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Flight sim is a different beast altogether.  Fast RAM can net you decent average FPS gains and significant minimum FPS gains where it matters most.  Personally, I went with 3600MHz RAM on my 7700k build a few months ago and I'm happy I did because it's the best flight sim machine I've ever used and by a wide margin.  My last 4790k @ 5GHz with 2400MHz RAM had much lower minimum FPS, in the 30's during FSX Mark 11 testing.  New machine has a minimum FPS of 50.  Massive improvement.  

Get the fastest RAM you can justify buying.  You don't need to spend $500 or anything, but don't cheap out either when the price difference between slow RAM and fast RAM is only $20-50.